Therapy at Muzzle Velocity
by Stand Alone Battle A.I
Summary: The Kelly Chambers underdog story. Harbinger has no idea what he's gotten himself into...
1. Freedom!

Please don't sue me BioWare... I can barely afford the my internet bill as it is...

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><p>Kelly Chambers couldn't help but notice the grey and black paint of the hallway. It always kind of amazed her that Cerberus was so damned effective at remaining secret, when the Illusive Man did pretty much everything short of getting Holo Ads posted all over the citadel. Uniforms, corporate colors, that damned logo, hell she honestly wouldn't be surprised the Illusive Man's number, or at the very least the Cerberus headquarters' number, was listed in the damned phone book. <em>'Maybe the universe is just that darn oblivious.'<em> If she could have mustered the energy, she would have smirked. '_That's probably why the universe is doomed.' _She thought grimly. She supposed that if people still didn't believe in the Reapers, after one had pretty much dropped onto their laps and said hello, then some could argue that this was Darwinism in action. That the universe, may in fact, be too stupid to let live.

It's funny where your thoughts go when you're nervous. Well… nervous wasn't really the word for how she felt at the moment, she was more than nervous; she was outright scared. Having spent the last 24 hours straight, in a room, being interrogated by the organization she so proudly worked for, had gone a long way to kill smile that normally lit up her face. And evidently it wasn't going to get any better, because at the end of the hall she could see Miranda Lawson. As always she stood with perfect posture, almost as if she was posing for a photo shoot or standing on a runway. Her genetically perfect face was aloof as always.

However though, not even Miranda's icy composure was any match for Kelly Chambers.

She could easily tell, by how rigid she was that she was trying to fake nonchalance. The way that she unconsciously kept her hand near her gun, all but screamed her contempt for the red head, and Kelly eyed her right hand and she saw that she was grinding her fingers into her palm '_she's not feeling patient today'_ she noted to herself.

In all honesty, she just wasn't in the mood for her haughty-all-powerful-bitch-routine right now. She was hungry and tired, both physically and mentally, and in spite of the pain medication that they gave her, _every_ _part _of her body was sore.

It was no secret, that Kelly had seen better days. Her face was a jumble of various cuts and bruises, most of which were covered in a little blue medigel patches, meant to ensure that they wouldn't scar. Her left cheek was still swollen, and she was sporting an epic shiner around her right eye.

And that was just her face.

When Dr, Chakwas first attended to her injuries, she was a mess. Bruised ribs, fractured right femur, first and second degree burns up her back and along the back of her legs. She had contusions running up and down her entire body, and though she still wasn't exactly sure as to what function her spleen served, it had apparently been ruptured. She still had a hard time looking in the mirror and managing not to cry.

After spending some much needed time in the infirmary, she found herself being questioned nonstop, no food, no sleep, and about to face whatever else they were going to throw at her.

'_So you know what' _she thought as she limped _'Miranda can gosh darn wait._

Xxxx Two days Earlier xxxX

Kelly woke up to the faint sounds of sobbing, echoing within her own small coffin. They weren't the sounds of her own voice, nor were they the only ones. She could hear dozens, people who were in the same predicament as herself, crying out or pounding at the glass of their own small tombs. After a few minutes, in a delirious haze, she finally began to remember where she was at.

'_Oh god, the Collectors have me!' _She started to panic.

In retrospect, Kelly would never know how long she screamed for. Nor would she ever know how long she pounded, uselessly, against the glass in the hopes that someone would let her out, which was actually saying a lot, in her case.

At a young age, doctors diagnosed her with a rare Genetic anomaly known as Hyperthymestic Syndrome which, in summary, meant that Kelly had memory that was as close to a Drell's as anyone could humanly get, while being completely non-toxic to lick (though there was no shortage of men who would volunteer to test this). Did this make her a Genius?

No. Not even close.

In a feat that utterly baffled anyone who knew of her condition, she miraculously found a way to fail math. Tests also determined that her logic and reasoning abilities were… less than stellar…

However though, the one thing that it _was_ entirely helpful in was psychology. With the acute ability to remember and categorize every single tick, twitch, and nervous habit, within 10 minutes of anybody she ever talked to made it almost impossible to lie to her. It was this gift that got her noticed by the Illusive Man, and how a seemingly bubbly-git got handpicked and placed on a crew of specialists. Dr. Wilson's betrayal came far too close to destroying the last, and best, weapon that humanity had within its arsenal. He nearly killed Commander Sheperd.

So in short, she was a walking human Polygraph or AKA the Devil Woman. (The latter was popularized by the majority of her ex-boyfriends)

Sometime later, long after she wore her throat raw, she curled into herself and tried to keep herself sane by telling herself that rescue will come soon.

"_Commander Shepard will come get me. Commander Shepard will come get me. Commander Shepard will come get me…" _she repeated to herself over and over again. Across from her, she could see others in the same predicament as herself going through their own veritable stages of panic and grief. The small red head tried to occupy her thoughts by wondering where the Commander was. As soon as he got here, he would make these bullies pay for ever laying a hand on her! He would save her, and then he would lift her into her into his strong arms, and carry her off to safety.

"_Commander Shepard will come get me…"_

He was probably kicking down their doors this very second.

Xx meanwhile xX

"…Launching Probe…" Commander Shepard watched as a single bead of light streaked from the Normandy, and landed on the planet below. _'I wish I could go down with a Mako' _He thought. While launching probes from orbit was _by far_ the single most efficient way of devastating local ecosystems, he felt like it lacked that 'personal touch'. There was just something… _**primal**_… about ruining patches of flowers, and hopelessly slow, yet gleefully peace loving animals in six wheel drive. Sure, he had a cool Hover Tank now, and boosting around at 200 mph was fun, though Tali and Garrus might disagree… loudly.

But where was the awesome crunch of running over those stupid monkeys? Where was the ever satisfying _THUNK, THUNK, THUNK, _of running over Thorian Creepers at 60 some miles per hour? The new M-44's jets could score them some awesome air time, but there was just no sport in it. Getting air in the old Mako… now _that_ was an achievement.

"We have found a large vein of Platinum, Commander." EDI said in her cool tone.

"Finally! Go baby, go…" he quietly cheered as he watched the counter for the platinum climb… He gave a small whoop, as it stopped at 5003. "Yes! Alright EDI, tell Garrus to start on the Thanix Cannon."

"Commander, we have only managed to mine 5000 units of platinum. Mr. Vakarian clearly stipulates that he requires 50,000 units of platinum to construct the Thanix Cannon."

"…Fuck!"

XxX

Kelly woke again, having finally worn herself out from panicking, to the sound of something different. It almost sounded like an odd mechanical buzzing, or maybe something vibrating. Fearfully, she pressed an ear to the glass and tried to identify where it was coming from. As far as she could tell, it was coming from the odd tubes that attached to the pods. She didn't know what they were for, but she assumed that they supplied air or something like that. After a few minutes, she estimated that it was coming from several of the pods across from her.

As if to confirm her suspicions, the people trapped across from her, more than likely the colonists from Horizon, began to lower themselves as far away from the noise as possible. Then with morbid curiosity, she watched as they were being sprayed with some sort of… liquid? Too far to hear them, whatever it was it drove them into a panicked frenzy. But after a few seconds though, she noticed that it didn't really look like panic… _'It looks like they're in pain'_

What she saw next will haunt her for the rest of her life.

Black splotches appeared on their skin, almost like thick mud, they began to get bigger. Hair fell out, eyelids disappeared.

"Oh god…" right before her eyes, they began to literally melt away, dissolving into nothing. "NO!" she beat at the glass again, wanting to do something, anything, to help them. The sounds of muffled screaming, more than likely from the pods next to her, could be heard as they were forced to watch the same show.

"NOO! SOMBODY HELP THEM!" she screamed, the sound of her own voice reverberating in her own pod. "please…" They weren't even struggling anymore; they looked like oily looking corpses, drunkenly swaying before they finally collapsed. Minutes later, they were gone.

If they tiny Yeoman could have mustered the energy, or the moisture, she would have cried again. But now all she could do is slump in her own little prison, and await the same fate to eventually claim her. With amazing clarity, she began to go over her life, reliving some of the most memorable parts, trying to figure out what had gone wrong.

How did she end up here? Was she really going to die like this, alone and afraid?

Kelly felt something familiar poking her in her back pocket. She reached back and discovered that the collectors had only stripped her of her Omni Tool, and her weapon (Like everyone else, she taken up arms to help defend the ship.) With something that might have passed for a smile, she fondly looked at the small stainless steel pen, which had been given to her when she graduated with her phycology degree.

In a world without paper, an old fashioned ink-pen was completely useless. It was merely symbolic, a gift from her parents, to show their support for her pursuit of one of the only things that she was ever really good at.

Suddenly… Kelly had an idea.

XxNormandy Mess HallxX

_Just behind Sargent Gardner's prepping table, Kelly Chambers stood in front of metal flash freezer. Like everything else, it was clearly marked as Cerberus property should they ever happen to lose it… or something. Kelly had no idea; she'd stopped questioning the reasoning long after discovering the logo on her underwear and socks that Cerberus provided to everyone, and focused on her task at hand._

_On the left hand side of the door was a key pad that only the mess Sargent had the codes to. _

_Looking thoughtful for a moment, she entered in a series of characters then pressed enter. She frowned when the LED readout flashed red and scrolled 'Access Denied'. After another long moment of thought, she tried again. However, this only provided the same results._

"_Whatcha doin?" a playful voiced asked behind her._

_Kelly jumped, and gave a shrill 'EEP', before she whirled around to her interloper. Kasumi sat, cross legged, on the counter and smiled at the red head. Her hood only revealed her grin, but Kelly could see the impish glint that never seemed leave her eyes._

"_I really wish you wouldn't do that!" Kelly said, as she clutched at her chest, giving the mightiest pout she had in her arsenal. _

"_They say that only a person with guilty conscious would jump like that." The infiltrator said, completely unperturbed by Kelly's Pout of Doom. "I believe that also raises the question at what you're doing here, at this hour."_

"_I'm trying to guess the code for the freezer." She admitted easily. Given Kasumi's choice of profession, and her adventurous personality, she highly doubted that she would tell on her. In fact, she may even be just the perfect person she needed._

"_Trying to guess the code? I don't think I've ever seen that work on a job before."_

_Kelly shrugged "I have access to Gardner's file and personal Psych Report. I figured I could try and guess what his password was." Kasumi made a face of mock surprise. _

"_Isn't that against some kind of oath, or something?" she said and lithely changed to a lying position, placing her hands under her chin._

"_1. I don't have a doctorate, so I'm not a doctor. 2. It clearly states, in the Hippocratic Oath, 'to do no harm, unless Tootie Fruity Ice Cream bars are involved.'" Kasumi giggled, causing Kelly to smile before she continued "So what do you say? You want in on this heist?" The playful glint in the thief's eyes, clearly told her approval. _

"_What's the offer?"_

"_Fifty, fifty. But I call dibs on any Choco Tacos we find."_

"_Deal" she said, and vaulted off the counter, in one smooth movement, and landed soundlessly in front of the freezer._

_Kelly expected her omni tool to light up, or maybe for her to pop the keypad off to get at the electronics inside. What she didn't expect however, was for her to pluck a spatula off the nearby rack, and jam it into the door. Within seconds, the door popped open with a -__**click**__-. Kelly blinked._

"_Why didn't I think of that…"_

"_I wouldn't sweat it. Every lock tries to make itself look impenetrable. However, you have to remember that every lock is built by someone, who'll inevitably cut corners, to save costs, somewhere."_

XxX

For the third time, Kelly stabbed her pen into a random spot, between the door and the pod, where she hoped would be a latch. Black ink ran down her hands, the stainless steel in ruins as she worked it along the crack. She gave a small sob of desperation, as she prayed that this would work. Her makeshift tool was falling apart; there would be no fourth attempt.

After a few seconds, she realized that it was caught on something. She pulled, and her heart leapt as the door opened just a millimeter. There was a latch, and she found it! She pulled up, with strength that was fueled by both hope and desperation, and cried out in surprise as the pen finally gave out.

She instantly cradled her hand, in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding, of her new inch long gash on her palm, when an odd hissing noise caused her to look up.

The pod door was open.

She all but flew out of her prison, scared to death that it might suddenly close again, and landed in a heap on the floor. The air smelled so bad, that she could actually taste it. Her hand hurt, and she was pretty sure she had bruised her knee, but she didn't care.

She was free!

**[[ Achievement Unlocked - Limited Edition ]] _Successfully escape from the Collector Pod. _**

She suddenly heard the sounds of screaming and cheering. She looked up and saw that everyone in the pods, who had the line of sight to see her, were now in an uproar. Some cheered, others pleaded for her to come let them out, while others were making their own escape attempts.

A small, high pitched, beeping noise brought her back to her former cell. She had obviously set off some sort of alarm. Who knew how much time she had before someone, or something, came to investigate. She rose to her feet, and…

"Oh my god…"

She could only see a dozen or so others from her vantage point, but now that she was out, she could see hundreds, maybe even thousands of other pods, most of them full.

On her level alone.

There had to be millions, all of them neatly lined along the walls and stretching out as far as the eye could see. Kelly was stunned.

After a long moment, she was broken from her trance, by the sounds of everyone screaming, and rushed over to the nearest pod with a Cerberus crew member. As she felt along the edges, hoping to find some sort of release lever. The dark skinned face of Crewman Patel pressed her hands and forehead against the glass.

Kelly couldn't find anything. Maybe it was remote controlled? She spun, looking for some kind of panel or maybe another tool she could use to pry it open. She was about to look for a release again, when Patel's hands began to beat at her door.

"_Run Kelly! Run!" _Her muffled voice said, pointing off to the side.

Not seconds after, she turned her head to the sudden sounds of beating wings. A Collector Drone landed, a mere hundred feet away. Its 4 eyes locked on to her as it raised its rifle.

Kelly ran, so panicked that she tripped on her own feet, just as a few rounds came whizzing by, where her torso would have been. Scrambling on all fours, barley making it to cover behind one of the other pods, she curled herself in fear as rounds pinged, and panged, right next to her.

"_Don't just sit there, yah daffy woman! The vent! Go to the vent!" _She knew that accent anywhere.

"Kenneth?" Kelly looked up at the pod she was using as cover, and saw the copper haired engineer frantically pointing to the wall right next to her.

"_Damn it Kelly, you've got to move yer ass! Go to the vent!"_ He said, jumping around his own pod like a Jack Russell Terrier. She looked over, and sure enough, there was a small rectangular hole in the wall. She crawled over and saw that it lead down.

Straight down.

She was about to protest, but she suddenly heard the heavy footfalls of the Drone approaching.

"_C'mon you over grown cockroach, I've eaten haggis that's looked meaner than you!" _Donnaly said, trying to gain its attention. _"It's true!" _Gabby's voice drifted in, from somewhere unseen.

Kelly looked into the black void behind her only escape. Who knew how far it went down? In all likelihood, she was probably going shatter every bone in her body. There had to be other options. She was about to try and make a break for the other direction when the collector finally came into view. It once again locked on to Kelly, and reached out to seize her.

Ignoring the Vent, Kelly dived to the right of the Collector's feet, narrowly dodging its outstretched hand… pincer… whatever, and scrambled to her feet. She ran for her life, trying to keep her pattern unpredictable as possible Kelly zig-zagged. The sounds of gunfire and ricocheting bullets were heard all around her.

One struck her in the back, and came out of her chest.

With no kinetic barriers, and no armor of any kind, she was mortally wounded. Kelly dropped to the ground like a stone. The round had penetrated her lung, pretty much obliterating her ability to breathe. She tried to crawl along the ground, but her strength was failing fast. With what little she had left, she managed to roll on to her back.

The last thing she ever saw was the Collector stand over her, raising its rifle, she stared down the barrel.

(CRITICAL MISSION FAILURE)

[Load Autosave]

She dove into the vent praying to God, Buda, and Tom Cruise, that she didn't turn herself into something that looked like baby-food at the bottom. She was lucky, that it didn't go straight down, like she feared.

Her freefall stopped, only after a few feet, and she landed on some sort of slope. Without any light of any kind, she could feel herself sliding down. Though she had no idea of how hast she was moving, she was pretty sure that, at one point, she hit Mach one on the way.

Just as she was beginning that that this vent may actually be bottomless, it finally evened off and she came to a jarring halt at the wall.

Kelly groaned.

She did a quick inventory of her body and discovered that all of her limbs were still attached, and nothing seemed to be broken. Amidst the blackness, she could see a small rectangle of light. Undoubtedly another vent hole, she crawled for it.

It's kind of funny, what can through a person's head at a time like this. Kelly liked to watch a lot of movies, and she couldn't help but think how much this felt like a scene from _Blasto: the first hanar specter 2, justice stings_, when he had to crawl through the ducts, of a Blue Sun's base to save the Asari counselor, before they sold her into slavery. Kelly sighed.

If only she could be as brave as Blasto, he'd know what to do.

Like a red headed rodent, Kelly carefully poked her head out of the duct entrance, and scoped out the surroundings for any danger. Like most of the Collector base, it was poorly lit. Only the air was much damper and had an odd odor, like something electrical was burning. Seeing nothing move, she crawled out.

Everything was in a dark blue hue, from a light source she couldn't see, and there were poles everywhere, sort of like an artificial forest. She cautiously moved, careful not to touch anything as she kept an eye out for any Collectors. She spotted a few doors, where they led she had no idea.

Any direction she took wasn't going to do her any good, unless she found some sort of weapon, or maybe a way to signal help. She thought that maybe if she tried to crawl back into the ducts, then she might be able to find another room with something more useful. However, maybe she…

She heard something. It was faint but she was pretty sure it was a voice. She looked all around her, but she didn't see anybody. She looked up and…

"Oh god…" She fell backwards, onto her but "oh god, oh god, oh god," she reapeated as she stared up at the limp bodies that were all mounted up at the top of the poles. There were dozens of them; she suddenly realized that all of the poles were actually Dragon's Teeth. She recoiled from everything near her, and tried to make her profile as small as humanly possible.

Too scared to take her eyes off the twitching bodies on the spikes, she crawled along the ground, in hopes of finding a door, when her hand brushed up against something. She looked down and her eyes lit up as she saw that there was a small pile of equipment, undoubtedly from the bodies of the victims on the spikes. She was about to crawl away when she finally looked at the random items strewn about. This was stuff that she could use!

(^ Level Up ^)

[10 squad points added]

**Combat Therapist:** Channeling every Blasto Vid she's ever seen, Kelly now knows how to defend herself. Since she knows where the Heat Sink is supposed to go in the gun, Kelly selects the M3 predator pistol. This also grants a bonus to Renegade points and unlocks special dialogs.

+ 15% Weapons Damage

+ 10% Health

**Technological Yeoman: **Hour spent, day in and day out, clearing spam mail from the Commanders mail box has taught Kelly to somewhat tech-savvy. Kelly equips herself with an OmniTool, allowing her to interface with simple computers, and even hack simple locks. This also grants a bonus to Paragon points and unlocks special dialogs.

+ 10% Shield Bonus

+ 15% Power Duration

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><p><strong>There it is! If you feel like taking part in this game, pick a class. The outcome of this little poll will greatly affect how the story goes.<strong>


	2. For the Ones That I Left Behind

IseriaDweller **[[ Achievment Unlocked - Was doin it before it was cool ]] **_**First review of Therapy at Muzzle Velocity**_

**I just wanna say thank you for your kind words, and to everyone who took the time read and review this fic. Also, the people have spoken, and majority rules for the Technological Yeoman. Kelly will walk the path of the paragon, but that doesn't mean we have to ignore _all_ of the Renegade Action popups. Nice people like Kelly, deserve to be the pouty baddass once in a while.**

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><p>Kelly picked out a small metal band that she recognized to be an OmniTool. She didn't really know too much about tech, but she did recognize the word <em>Savant<em> on the side. It was, at the very least, the same brand name tool that Commander Shepherd had given Tali. Sifting further through the pile, Kelly picked up a heavy pistol. The weapon was still in its compact form, but that didn't stop the Yeoman from frowning.

Kelly had a strong distaste for guns. A quality of the small redhead, that was probably going to get her killed this time. Kelly turned the weapon about in her hand, and carefully probed for a way to unfold the pistol. "Aw shucks… who am I kidding." She murmured to herself. She couldn't use one these to save her life.

Literally.

Kelly grew up on a farm on Eden Prime. The toughest thing she had to do was shoo away the neighbor's cat Mr. Mittens when he got into their trash. But still… she should keep it. If she managed to escape, then maybe someone else did too who knew how to use it.

Kelly secretly wished she could have an awesome past like Blasto. Whereas his parents were killed when his ship crash-landed on the nuked out world of Tuchanka, and he was taken in by a Krogan Warlord, and his life mate who happened to be an Asari Justicar. Blasto's tentacles were only a foot long when he killed his first Thresher Maw for Pete's sake!

"_UUUUGGGHHHHhhhhhh" _One of the husks moaned from the top of his Dragon's tooth. Like a shoplifter in a crowded market, Kelly quickly stuffed the compacted pistol into her pocket and scurried toward the door.

**[[Achievement Unlocked – Armed and Fabulous]] **_**Successfully arm your Yeoman**_

OmniTool aglow, Kelly wandered through some sort of hallway which was easily the width of a 4 lane Highway, and tried to figure out her new Omnitool."Let's see here… Mode… Options…"

She just needed to keep herself alive, long enough for Commander Shepard to come to the rescue. She had absolute faith in him, and knew he'd be coming for her at any time. The team of specialists he'd recruited was nearly unstoppable, and at any moment they'd all come bursting through that door, shooting the whole place up. It was just a matter of time…

Kelly frowned.

What's taking him so long?

XxxXMeanwhileXxxX

"We really don't have time for this Zaeed!"

"Well you better bloody hell make time Shepard!"

Zaeed and Commander Shepard squared off, in the eerily empty CIC of the Normandy. The main view on Joker's screen was alight with all sorts of readings ranging from barometric pressure, to known cataloged species of life on the planet below. Most importantly was the large red dot on the main view that EDI clearly marked as a Blue Suns base.

"Vido's sure as hell not gonna have the goddamned common courtesy of putting a bullet in his own fucking brain. So if you want me on your little suicide squad, you sure as hell had better hold up your end of the bargain."

"I'm just saying, a mission to save galaxy, as we know it, is probably not the best time to be trying to settle a grudge-"

"A grudge?A GRUDGE!"Zaeed practically foamed at the mouth. "Vido turned my men against me! Paid six of them to hold me down while he put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger! For 20 years…"

Shepard instantly regretted opening his mouth. Not because he was afraid of Zaeed, but because once somebody got him going he never shut the hell up. At least with Mordin, it was like getting the same volume of speech, just in fast forward, so it never really took that long. Shepard rolled his eyes, and focused back on the Merc.

"…It was all going fine, until he started hiring batarians. Cheaper labor, he says. Goddamned terrorists, I says…"

Yup… he was definitely locked into 'story mode'. Shepard ran a hand over his frustrated face, and tried not to sigh. He had like 2 other 'I want this guy dead missions' and god only knows how many 'reunite with my father/sister/son/whatever missions.

Oh, and let's not forget Tali's trail! Who knows how long it'll take to get through the quarian legal system. Shepard glanced back at the aging gun for hire…

"… I survived a gunshot to the head, and you survived getting spaced. People like you and…"

Oh , for the love of god, he's getting a 'we're not so different speech' speech. That's hit, it's time to speed this crap up. Some people like to say; that Vengeance was a dish best served cold.

Commander Shepard preferred to get his _to go_.

"EDI!" Shepard bellowed, uncaring of the look Zaeed was giving him for being interrupted "I want you to lock onto the refinery and fire the Thanix Cannon."

"It is highly ill-advised that we-"

"What did I tell you, about being second guessed on my own ship, by my own ship?" The Commander demanded. No reply came from the AI, However, the deck suddenly vibrated for a few seconds and everyone could easily see the bright blue beam streak from the hull, and down to the planet below.

The impact of the molten metal, which was moving at just a little under the speed of light, was both as utterly devastating as it was spectacular. The refinery, the whole nearby jungle, and even a few mountains that were unfortunate enough to be in that side of the hemisphere, were just simply vaporized. An ever-expanding fireball, and a giant mushroom cloud, marked its utter demise.

It put the entire CIC in a warm orange glow, making it look like a warm sunset on that one might find on Illium.

Zaeed, and everyone else on every deck that happened to be by a window, was rendered utterly speechless. The Commander meanwhile was gleefully checking off Zaeeds loyalty mission off of his data-pad.

"Alright! Now that's how Specters get it done!" Shepard tapped his Omnitool and opened a channel to Garrus, who was currently in the mess hall. "Hey Garrus, Sidonus is on the Citadel right?"

It took the turian a few seconds to respond as he suddenly realized he hadn't chewed his dextro-ration bar in over 15 seconds; eyes locked on the window and too mesmerized by the sight, (and implications) of the commander reinventing the definition of 'Overkill'.

"…_You're not going to use the Thanix Cannon on the Citadel… are you?"_

There was a long silence before the commander finally responded "…No?" Suddenly, Joker's voice cut in through the ship's intercom.

"Uh Commander, you better come see this." Shepard casually shoved aside a still stunned Zaeed (who for the first time in his life, had nothing to say) and joined Joker in the cockpit. Their pilot pointed at his main view screen, as EDI began to explain.

"The molten slug of the Thanix Cannon has penetrated the Crust, as well as several other layers of Zoyra and is having an adverse reaction with the planet's core. I'm detecting seismic activity and multiple volcano eruptions across the entire surface."

Even from orbit, they could see orange plumes of volcanic fire, and ashes, as it sprout at random spots on the surface. Shepard gulped as he realized that he might have caused a planetary apocalypse.

"I estimate a planetary implosion in approximately 1 hour."

"Oh, they are totally gonna blame me for this…."

xxXXxx

The Yeoman was just wrapping up her patented Kelly Chambers Happy Dance.

While Commander Shepard was adding 'Planet' (next to 'Space Station', Cloning Facility' and 'Reaper') to his list of shit-I've-destroyed, Kelly had found out how to activate her Omnitools Combat and hacking routines.

Even now, the glowing strips of yellowlight, which made up the Tech-Shields, made the red head look decidedly awesome, and more importantly offered a real means of protection too.

This gave her an honest chance at survival!

Kelly pushed another button, and squealed in delight as a small Combat Drone suddenly materialized in front of her.

"Hey there, little guy!" She cooed at the floating orb, which retracted from her in fear. Or so Kelly thought anyway. It was actually a programed VI response to keep the user from being electrocuted by their own attack Drone.

"Awwww. There's no need to be shy!" she reached out to the now cornered orb.

_**-ZAP-**_

"OUCH!" Kelly cried and retracted her hand. She blew on her still smoking finger, and decided that trying to pet a combat drone (or anything that was randomly arcing with electricity for that matter) was just simply a bad idea.

"I'm gonna name you Mister Zappy…" she said, while giving it a cross look.

Now that she had a means of surviving, she had to find a way off the base. If she stayed then they were more than likely going to find her. Kelly soaked up the environment around her, and saw terminals dotting the walls all around her.

"Well there's certainly no shortage of terminals" she said thoughtfully, while chewing a fingernail. She cautiously approached one of the more complex looking ones and looked at the holographic display. Everything was in Prothian. From the lines of random gibberish, Kelly deduced (by how detailed it looked) that this terminal might hold valuable information, which might lead to an escape from this place.

Or it could be Collector snack machine. Do they even need to eat?

Before Kelly could get to pondering if the collectors even had moths, she decided…

Wait a minute…. Did the collectors have mouths? Did they only live for a day like flies or something? That wouldn't really make sense then because from what she knew, Biotics consumed a lot of calories and-

The Yeoman smacked her palm to her forehead "Focus Kelly, focus!" she muttered to herself and activated her omnitool. She held it up to the terminal and waited for the little circle thingy to change into a couple of arrows, indicating that she synced signals.

Luckily for the Yeoman, she wasn't going to have to test her extremely limited computer skills. More than likely, they never actually expected anyone ever actually finding a way through the Omega-4 relay, let alone someone managing to escape, so it seemed that most of these computers were left unlocked.

The map, if that's what it was, appeared to be color coded. Most of everything appeared to be Yellow, while there were certain areas that were colored blue and one spot that was green. Though she wasn't, particularly positive where she was at, she made her best guess, using the red blip (which she assumed was an alarm triggered from her escape) as a reference.

So that put her next to one of the blue rooms…

Okay then.

No matter what, her top priority was finding a way off of this hellhole. What she needed was to find a hanger or, maybe some sort of communications array.

Good lord, she realized that she was going to have to start exploring the Collector base. That particular venture was so full of bad-idea, that it was practically fattening. Current luck trends suggested that she was probably going to stumble into a Collector breakroom, and get herself turned into Kelly-chow.

Oh god, that's not what they were doing with the people-paste they were making, were they? She turned to her new companion.

"You won't let them eat me, will you Mr. Zappy?" The Drone beeped merrily at her and Kelly smiled. She was deliberately talking to her companion to keep herself from wondering if the strawberry lotion she used, would add a fruity taste in Yeoman-stew. She decided that she should probably try to see what was in the blue room beside her. She turned and crept over to the large metal door, keeping an eye out for any danger.

She stepped up to the door, which was twice as large as the docking bay of the Normandy, and looked for a way to open it. As usual, that there was that holo display in the center but it was currently red. The yeoman could only assume that it meant that it was locked.

"Well this is hunky dory…" she said to herself, and gave the door a halfhearted kick. She powered up her Omnitool and searched for the Bypass program.

**-kachink swoosh-**

It happened so fast, she didn't even have time to react. The lock suddenly turned green and the door just opened. For a second, she'd thought that she'd gotten lucky, however though, that particular thought had died a horrible, horrible death as she found herself staring into four beady eyes of Collector. A Collector, _**which was now a freaking foot and a half away from her face**_.

Too scared to scream, Kelly back peddled away from the giant humanoid insect, only to trip over her own feet. She closed her eyes, and waited for the inevitable ending.

In that long moment she made peace with god and the fact that Kelly-paste would probably taste like liquid Spam…

But all she heard were footsteps.

She opened her eyes and saw that it had simply walked around her. With an open jaw, she watched as the very visage of her nightmare busied itself pushing a hovering pod. Two others were behind it, each doing the identical task of moving their own pods. They both even made direct eye contact with her, and simply regarded her as nothing more than a mere obstacle. Kelly numbly stood and peered into the room.

There had to be more than a 2 dozen drones milling about, each carried hunks of electronics that they had taken apart. Some were busy dissecting the junk on the table, while others were depositing scraps into their hover-pods.

None of them even cared that she was here.

Be it morbidly curious, or maybe adventurously confident Kelly walked into the room.

"This is frickin _huge_." The said to herself. The cavernous room held piles, upon piles, of gutted ships and hovercars. Kelly stood, in what had to have been, the largest junk yard she'd ever seen. If she had to guess, the Collectors were examining their technology, seeing if the reapers were in for any nasty surprises.

Kelly walked amongst the skeletal structures of what used to be Alliance Strike-Class Fighters, when a bright gleam caught her eye.

It was a fully intact Kodiak class shuttle! They obviously hadn't gotten to gutting it yet. Kelly squealed in delight, and ran over to her shining beacon of hope and hit the door button. Kelly had always been a fan of these shuttles as she thought that, with their stubby little thrusters, they looked sort of like hamsters.

Giant, flying hamsters.

Crazy thoughts aside, the Technological Yeoman plopped herself into the seat, and tried to make sense of the controls. She'd never operated a shuttle before, but that wasn't going to be a problem. She'd once watched Goldstein run through the procedures before, and with her perfect memory, she could bring up the process as if she were watching a training video.

Kelly stopped as realization dawned on her, as she was suddenly aware that she'd be leaving the others behind. The usually chirpy woman frowned, as she let her thoughts wander to them.

"I'm sorry…" was all she could say for those she left behind. She closed her eyes and concentrated.

_-Sargent Gardner smiles and hands Kelly a tray. She beams at him when she sees a small bowl of Tapioca pudding, and knows he went out of his way to make her favo-_

Kelly's eyes snapped open and she realized that her mind was betraying her. There's nothing she can do for them, she just barely escaped herself! "Concentrate darn it!"

_-Ken Donally jerks awake, and realized he'd fallen asleep at the table in the crew lounge. Kelly and Gabby try not to laugh, as Ken has no idea that propulsion engineer drew a penis on his forehead-_

Kelly couldn't stop them. She tried so hard to force the memories out of her head, but she couldn't. Just what in the hell could she honestly do? She was in a base full of Collectors! Before she could think about it, she hit the 'on' button to the Kodiak's main drive core. Panels and various displays informed her of the shuttle's condition. Everything was green across the board, her escape was only waiting for her command.

_-Kelly looks up from her terminal on the CIC. She sees Hawthorn stealing a glance at her and quickly looks down at his own workstation in hopes that she didn't see him. Kelly smiles-_

Could she honestly live with herself, if she just took off and left everyone to die? "There's nothing I can do!" she cried to herself. She was alone, frightened, and outnumbered by god only knows how many.

She was one person. One goddamned person.

Kelly looked down, and reached for the Throttle controls. But just as she put her hand on it, something, somebody once told her came to mind.

xxXxXxXxXxXxx

_Garrus Vakarian is a methodical machine. He stands in the armory, gun in pieces, he oils and cleans. There is no spot goes untouched, no component the goes unattended, he readies his weapon._

_No matter how hard he tries, he can still see their faces. _

_They haunt his dreams, each one a testament to his failures. Some of the best men he'd ever known; dead, because he wanted to go play hero. _

_The turian rebel looks up from his work when he senses another person in the room. He looks over and tries not to sigh. It's that little Cerberus female again. He'd only been on the ship for 3 days, and it felt like she was stalking him. Always managing to be in the corner of his eye, it was like she was waiting for something, and Garrus had a pretty good idea of what it was. _

_Shepard informed him, that she was the ship's psychologist. No doubt, she fantasies ideas of healing him of his emotional scars, and all that. Humans were funny like that; idealistic. The thought almost made him laugh. _

_Was he that bad once? Thinking he could make the galaxy a better place, one small piece at a time?_

"_Hello, Miss Chambers, you look pretty busy at that table there. Is there anything I can do to assist?" The turian asked as Kelly was pretending to inspect a shiny blue bar at the rifle table. _

"_Oh, me?" She asked nonchalantly "No, I'm good. I'm just making sure that this… part… works. You know, so it doesn't jam or something." She explained and made a show of carefully examining the object._

_Garrus nodded "Well I'm glad to see everyone is doing their part. I can't begin tell you how many times I've had my meal malfunction on me in the field." _

"_Huh?" Kelly actually looked at the object for real this time. Sure enough, she saw the word 'Dextro' and groaned. The thingy she was 'inspecting' turned out to be Garrus's dry Dextro-Ration._

"_Well this is awkward" she muttered and blushed further when Garrus chuckled. Her efforts were rewarded however, as Archangel waved her over and handed her a rag and some oil. Soon the Yeoman found herself standing beside him, polishing the barrel of a Mantis Sniper Rifle. It wasn't long before Garrus saw her staring at the side of his face._

"_Does it hurt?" she asked. Garrus is a little touched at the earnest expression on her face. _

"_Sometimes" he shrugs "But I don't mind it though. It… reminds me of my own stupidity. It's what I get for thinking that I could change anything on Omega." Kelly frowns._

"_Don't do that. You've done more to help than you'll ever know."_

"_Did I? Because the last I checked, people are still getting murdered on the streets" Garrus picked up the rifle's slide. With a rag he carefully cleaned every nook and as he continued "Those that are deemed less fortunate are still being sacrificed to untouchable people. Everything I did didn't even make a dent Miss Chambers." Garrus was silent for a moment. "You just haven't seen what I've seen."_

_The two were silent for another long moment. The Yeoman looked deep in thought, and Garrus was about to pack away his things, and bid her good day, when she finally spoke._

"_Maybe you're right, maybe I haven't seen what you've seen... But that doesn't mean you've seen everything." Kelly brings up her Omnitool. "Before I was asked to work for the commander, I used to work in the Citadel." Garrus can see that she's brought up a video file "Technically, I'm not supposed to show anyone this… But I think you need to see it anyway." _

_After a few seconds, a video begins to play and Garrus can see a young Asari maiden sitting at a desk. A camera is pointed right at her and he can see the small scars that run along her face and neck. It isn't hard to tell that she was once the victim of abuse._

"_**You look tired." **__Kelly's voice wafts in from somewhere off camera. The Asari smiles sadly._

"_**I'm alright… some nights are harder than others though… Sometimes, I still dream I'm back on Omega." **_

"_**So how are you holding up?"**_

"_**I… I've got a job now. It's not much, I clean trays at a Salarian resteraunt." **__She smiles again, but this time it looks real__** "My boss is really nice though. And It pays for my apartment."**_

"_**Do you have any Goals in mind?"**_

"_**Yea… I wanna go to school… Maybe be a therapist. Like you."**_

"_**Like Me?" **__The maiden pauses to consider her response. Finally, she speaks._

"_**Archangel gave something that I never thought I was going to get on Omega." **__She works to fight back tears, then promptly refuses something off screen. Its clear she wants to be strong.__** "I got a second chance… I can't fight, I can't do what archangel does… But I still want to help. He gave me my life back, and I'm not going to waste it."**_

_Kelly ends the video there, and looks to Garrus. Next to Krogans, and obviously Quarians, Turians were damn near impossible to read and Garrus was no exception. Kelly could never know what went through his mind at that moment._

_She wondered If Garrus remembered the Asari. Kelly did, she remembered that case in perfect clarity. She, and several others, had been found on a batarian slave cruiser. Somebody had shot the crew, then alerted C-sec, where they promptly rescued the captives. Whatever went through his head, she guessed it was good, because his mandibles flared and his ruined face drew into a smile._

"_Thank you… sometimes I forget that one person can-_

XXxXxXxXxXxXX

"-make all the difference in the world…" The Yeoman says to herself. She looks down at the at the shuttle's controls. Her heart and her mind wage an internal war.

It's absolutely impossible.

_They're trapped, they'll all die if you do nothing._

You're not a soldier. You don't even know how to fight.

_How can you even consider abandoning them?_

You'll die for nothing.

_They'll die for nothing._

(((Paragon Action)))

With righteous fury in her heart, and tears sparkling in her eyes, she slams her fist into the power control button, and the shuttle powers down.

Kelly's made a lot of poor decisions in her life, and this is one that she refuses to make. She joined this crew to make a difference, to combat the invalids that refused to lift a finger to help anyone but their own status quo. The Council, The Alliance, hell even the entire terminus system was all out for themselves. If she can't even muster the courage to save her friends, then what the hell was the point to anything? Why was she even here?

Not this time. Kelly knows what she has to do. It has never been clearer.

If she dies, then by god she was going to die trying. They certainly weren't the specialists that made up Shepard's squad, but damn the crew looked out for each other. Somewhere along the way, they became family. Kelly chambers stood up.

She was really going to do this.

She was going to take on the Collectors…

"ouchy" she cradled her hand, and looked around for a medkit. She'd take on the Collectors, after she found some medigel. Hitting the power button like that really hurt her hand…

**[[ Achievement Unlocked – I'm all out of gum ]] **_**Complete part one of Therapy at Muzzle Velocity**_

(((Choice)))

Recruit The Pretender

Recruit The Custodian

Recruit The Maintenance Man

Recruit The Loudmouth

**Alright people! We are rocking and/or rolling here. Here's the way it's gonna work. Much like the game itself, I'll offer choices here and there, and the ones you make will affect path of the story, and inevitably, how it ends. **

**Down below is the list of possible achievements. Like any game, it'll be impossible to get them all in one run, but that doesn't mean that we won't try, right? Oh yea, just be advised I'm uh… really slow at updating. I'm working on that.**

* * *

><p><strong>-List of all achievements for the story-<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>The Pretender – recruit The Pretender<strong>

**The Custodian – recruit the Custodian**

**The Maintenance Man – recruit The Maintenance Man**

**The Guardsman – Recruit The Guardsman**

**The Medic – recruit The Medic**

**The Loudmouth – recruit The Loudmouth**

**Limited Edition – Successfully escape the Collector pod**

**Armed and Fabulous – Arm your Yeoman**

**I'm all out of gum – Complete part one**

**You should stick to stamps – Kill a Collector**

**It was like that when I got here! – Cause over a 1000,000,000 credits worth of damage**

**You have 10 seconds to comply – Unleash a YMIR**

**Can I get it in pink? – Acquire the M-34 Infantry Fighting Vehicle  
><strong>

**Collect that! – Successfully defeat harbinger**

**Gonna need more Raid… - Successfully defeat a Praetorian**

**Ah yes, Kelly… - Complete part 2**

**If they came to see me beg… - Beg shamelessly**

**DEE DEE! – Destroy the collector Science Facility**

**I hope that was a cone – Run over 3 Collectors with the M-34**

**Was doin it before it was cool – First Review of Therapy at Muzzle Velocity**

**The real deal – Gain the loyalty of The Pretender**

**My better half Gain the loyalty of The Maintenance Man**

**Brother where art thou - Gain the Loyalty of The Guardsman**

**Gone in 59 seconds – Make an impossible jump in the M-34**

**Surgeon General - Gain the loyalty of the medic**

**Prime Time! – Gain the loyalty of The Loudmouth**

**Through the cracks – Gain the loyalty of The Custodian**

**Girl's gatta eat, right? – steal the Collector's slush fund**

**Who flung poo? – Kill a collector by overloading a sewage pipe**

**Live Free, or Die Hard – Fre the Captives on the Collector base**

**Holy crap that does! – Survive a direct hit from Harbinger**

**The Proof is in the pudding – Find the evidence to prove the Reaper threat is real**

**The short straw – Send a Squad member to certain doom**

**30 silver pieces – One of your squad members becomes indoctrinated**

**The whole gang – Recruit all squad members**

**Everybody else was doin it… - Assault one of your squad members**

**Bow chicka bow-wow – Complete Kelly's romance scene**

**Dr Octogonopus – Use a Mass Accelerator Cannon**

**It ain't easy being cheesy – Use a one-liner, and look cool doing it**

**Shanked! – Score a kill with the Tech Knife**

**Rest well… - Lose a squad member**

**Slayer – Destroy the Human Reaper**

**Where you at? – Successfully contact the Normandy**

**Yippy Kayyay – Save the Normandy**

**Flawless Cowgirl – Manage to save everyone  
><strong>

**Collective asses kicked – Force Harbinger to Release Control**

**I'm gonna sell it on E-bay – Keep the Collector base**

**All for nothing – only Kelly survives**

**Hope that was insured – Destroy the Collector base**

**Therapy at Muzzle Velocity – Say what needs to be said**


	3. Pomises

**Therapy at Muzzle Velocity **

**(insert curiously epic theme music)**

**[load last save]**

Kelly liked to think that she looked like Blasto, when he armed himself to fight of waves of genetically altered Zombie Krogans from destroying the Citidel Orphanage/Children's Hospital in Blasto; The First Hanar Specter 8, Jelly of Justice. Unfortunately though, the yeoman didn't have any rifles, shotguns, or that awesome Unlicensed Nuclear Accelerator, that he'd received from the Hanar Special Techs Division.

Miss Chambers had a full strip of medigel packs (that she wrapped around herself, like a little bandoleer), an empty pistol, and a red cloth that she tied around her head like a bandanna. Screwed as she was, she had to think positive, and be brave like Blasto...

"This one has come to kick posteriors, and mechanically masticate chewing gum" she said serenely "However, this one's gum supplies are currently depleted." The redheaded woman said to her own reflection, in the shuttles small lavatory. She continued to examine herself in the mirror, until she was happy that she looked decidedly bad-ass, then removed the cloth and folded it and put it away.

She didn't want her hair to get all shmoopy...

The young woman stepped out of the Kodiak, and found herself back in the Collector scrap yard. She made a point to keep her Omnitool off, and combat drone unsommoned as she didn't want want to draw any attention to herself. It was still kind of curious that they made no effort to try and attack her, but she kind of suspected that maybe they didn't see her as a threat.

She supposed that it kind of made sense, if she really didn't think about it too much.

Basically all of her speculations, came down to few guesses. The one that seemed most likely however, was that the Collectors probably _could_ see her but were unable to do anything about her. They probably had absolutely no free will, and thus, until whomever ran this place actually knew she was here, she'd be safe.

She hoped anyway...

Either way, she suspected that any hope, of going unnoticed, was all about to be blown to crap, as soon as she initiated phase one of operation 'Save everyone and kick Collector ass'. Kelly frowned.

Alright, so her mission naming abilities kinda sucked. _But_ since it was her operation, she did get to give herself her very own awesome code name, which she promptly dubbed herself 'Red Phoenix' (a cool name, that the redhead had secretly been waiting most of her adult life to use).

And of course, there was that minor logistical issue of having absolutely no real plan of attack.

So... yea ok, she was freakin screwed. Kelly, poked her head back into the massive hallway of the Collector base, and contemplated her next move. Pretty much, she was going to have to get some help, or this mission was going to be over before it can ever even get off the ground.

"What would Blasto do?..." she asked herself.

...Well …In Blasto 3; Sea of love, the hanar was able to rescue his genius, supermodel asari girlfriend, from that evil lab by setting a bunch of bombs, and thus, creating a diversion. The yeoman rubbed her chin, she didn't have any explosives but...

Kelly looked up and saw an entire network of pipes, all different colors, and running in every direction. She raised an eyebrow.

XxxXxXxxX

"_...so Vanis, that stupid turian git, somehow managed to set of every god damned alarm across the entire complex. Now keep in mind, that this was supposed to be a fucking recon mission. We're armed with light rifles and machine pistols, we probably be buggered tryin take on one krogan, let alone the entire fucking Blood Pack base. I barely had time to call Vanis a fucking moron when we start to hear the those big sons-of-bitches start busting down the doors, shotguns blazing."_

"_oh dear..." was all Kelly could say, as she leans foreword in her seat and blows at her steaming cup of coffee. It may seem kind of odd, but of all the people the people aboard the Normandy, Kelly would have to say that her favorite person to talk to was Zaeed Massani. _

_Maybe it was partially because he reminded her so much of her grandpa Chambers, a grizzled first generation colonist who helped found Eden Prime. Both men smelled of that curious combination of machine oil, and aftershave. Granted, her grandpa got it from managing farm equipment all day, whereas Zaeed got his from oiling his rifles. However, it could also be the way that both men could just tell an amazing tale. Even now, the frigates small mess hall was beginning to become crowded as more and more crewman stopped to listen._

_It could even be the simple fact that she never had to corner the man to do her job. The wartime relic was an open book to any who simply were willing to listen. There was no deception to have to work around, no games, or layers of misdirection to go through. The man was so brutality honest, that many just wrote him off as just rude._

_However, if Kelly had to pick one thing, she would probably say that it was because she secretly envied secretly him._

_In a way, Zaeed represented everything that Kelly could never be. The Mercenary was so...adventurous. Everyday probably brought something new and interesting. Everything he's ever done in the past, be it good or bad, crazy or just plain stupid, brought some lesson that he could take with him wherever he went. _

_Kelly never wanted to admit it, but her life had become... static. Her job, as much as she loved it, barely paid for her windowless studio apartment in the Citidel's D wing. Her boyfriend, whom she suspected was cheating on her, left another message on her inbox stating that he'd be working late again._

_Chalk it up to cosmic irony, that the yeoman had spent so many nights staring up a metal ceiling, alone, wondering if the galaxy had something more to offer._

"_Wait a minute, didn't you say that there was a strike team nearby?" Mathews asks. The aging mercenary, waves a dismissive hand at him. _

"_Son, out on the field, you learn pretty damned quick that when seconds count, backup is always a few sodding minutes away. You don't survive my line of work by pussy-footing around corners, waiting for the heavy hitters to come pull your ass out of the fire."_

"_So what did you do?" Kelly asked. _

"_We were bloody fucked. I knew it, they knew it, my team sure as hell knew it. There was five of us, and... I don't know, maybe 30, 35 krogan? Twice that in vorcha and those bloody attack varen." Zaeed leans back, and pulls a out a cigar in total disregard for the sign on the wall. Goldstein raises an eyebrow as she speaks._

"_30 krogan? Are you going to tell me that you toe to toe, against 30 krogan?"_

"_Your bet your ass i did." He lights his cigar, and takes a puff._

"_You see, that's the problem with you damn kids. You watch enough holovids and extranet games, and you start to think that space is some sodding western, where the guy with the fastest trigger finger is always going be the one on top. _

_Not one person ever remembers, that just because you're the strong, that doesn't mean you can't get your ass kicked." _

_See, let me tell you the dirty little secret about real life." Zaeed leaned into the table, meeting Kelly's gaze "Its not the strong that survive out there; It's the one who keeps his head on his shoulders, the one who hits first, hits hardest, and fights to win." He leans back again, and turns back to Kelly. _

"_Luckily, Jessie was all dolled up in her favorite, armor piercing ammo converter. Together, we start shooting every pipe we see along the walls."_

"_The pipes?" Kelly asks_

"_Always something good in the pipes. If its water, it'll short out omnitools and combat drones. If its fire-retardant-foam, then it'll muck up their guns and black out face masks and visors. The best is when you hit a fuel line. You can watch those fuckers burn"_

xXXxXxXXx

She could do this. In her heart, she knew that she could save them. She will save them.

With bravery she didn't know that she had, she marched up to the Vents.

Though the Collectors in the scrap yard had ignored her, she decided that it was best not to take any chances. However, that didn't mean that she had to like what she was about to do. The ventilation ducts were scary, they were stuffy, smelled oddly of old-ham, and were dark as crap. However, she wasn't going to be able to save anyone if she preemptively pissed off the Collectors, and got herself turned into a Kelly smoothie...

How did Joker ever do this? Now that she thought about it; did the Collectors get Joker too? One of the last things she remembered was EDI announcing that Joker was on route to the AI core, and that it was imperative that be made it. She doubted that the Collectors would be too careful with his condition, and made her wonder if the helmsman was alone somewhere, cradling a broken limb inside a pod. She sighed. One more reason, she had to do this.

"C,mon Kelly, you can do this..." With a grunt, she pulled off the Vent cover and activated her Omnitool's flashlight. To her dismay, she saw that the duct went into a deep slope, however, this was where all the pipes seemed to be converging. Kelly had a plan, though crappy it may be, it was a plan.

She let her mind wander as she climbed in, once again, her thoughts went out to Commander Shepard and where he could possibly be...

XxXxxXxX

Miranda Lawson crouched behind a stone pillar, using it as cover, she listening to the transmissions that echoed away inside her helmet. The eclipse mercenaries continued to put up stiff resistance as round after round bounced off her cover, not inches from her face.

She looked over, and saw the commander try and force another powercell into the hulking M96 Mattock heavy rifle. He cursed, and she could see that he was struggling with the jammed weapon.

Years of tactics and training flashed before her eyes. She checked her hud, and saw dozens of red blips move across her motion tracker. The team had managed to establish a foothold within the base, however, they were currently pinned down. If they could launch an offensive, then they could probably spear their way through.

If she was going to save Oriana, then she had to...

"Commander?..." she asked.

"Gimme a sec!" he snapped, and tried again to force the glowing cell in.

"We need a plan" Arcangel's voice toned in "from my vantage point, I can see at least 4 heavies, and two snipers hiding up on the balconies. I can take them out, but I need someone to draw their fire for a minute."

"Understood" she said. "Kasumi, on my mark, I need you to toss a flash bang. Grunt, we need you and Jack to move in and press their right flanks. If you can get them to fall back, then that should put most of the ground troops right into Thane, and Legion's kill zones."

Zaeed nodded. "Good plan, I'll take the Justicar, and the salarian here, and press their forward line. The turian and the quarian can cover us, but we're gonna need some fire support." He looked to Jacob.

"Roger, I've got a full load of rockets, and when the commander gets that big ass gun working, we'll give em hell."

Like everything else in her life, Miranda was methodical in her tactics. She turned to the geth "Legion, can you give me a number crunch?"

"Affirmative" the geth's plates shifted, and whirred as he procsessed hundreds and thousands of variables, all in the matter of seconds "Given our current position, we estimate a 32.33 percent chance of survival." he said, his flashlight eye meeting Miranda's gsze from across the room "Rounded up."

This bit of news caused the Operative to sigh. "Well, we've dealt with worse. Alright, everybo-"

"Ah, son of a... Screw it!" Everyone turned to the commander, as he threw down his heavy Mattock Rifle, and kicked it away. Switching out for his bright yello Cain, he jammed the safety off and the weapon began to emit an unholy whine. He peaked over his cover, then turned his head back with a smirk.

"Alright chums, lets do this!" To everyone's horror, he leaped over and charged the entire Eclipse Mercenary fighting force. "COMMMANDAAAHHHH SSHHEPAAARRRDDD!" The nuke launcher shining like a small star, the high pitched noise of his gun was soon drowned out by the sounds of every one of the eclipse firing at once.

Tali sputtered "I.. wh... Oh Keela, he just ran in..."

"Save him!" someone cried, and everyone else jumped out of cover and charged forward.

"Oh god!"

"Sick to the plan guys! Stick to the plan!"

"Bloody hell, Shepard!"

"Eat this!" Shepard said, and was soon followed by a** thoomp!**

xXxXXxXx

Inside one of the many maintenance rooms, Collectors milled about and tended to many of the valves and gauges that breathed life into the entire Collector base. None of them seemed to notice, or care, that one of the air duct covers suddenly popped off. There was a few seconds of nothing, then Kelly poked her head out for a second then quickly brought it back in. Another few seconds of nothing, then finally her combat drone floated out.

Lying on her stomach, Kelly watched the screen of her omnitool, and carefully pressed the keys, as she guided Mister Zappy around the collectors. Kelly would never claim to be an expert, and lord knows that it was certainly showing at the moment, she somehow managed to awkwardly guided the her little friend to one of the bigger valves.

Through the drone's camera she could see what looked like a red warning symbol. She frowned, and moved the glowing sphere to another pipe, hoping to find something that looked a little more friendly.

It would be really mean to hit something dangerous. Kelly just wanted to make a mess, and hopefully the Collectors will be too busy trying to clean up, whatever she managed to spill, to worry about anybody guarding the pods.

It was a solid plan... she hoped. Finally, the Yeoman stopped at one of the other lines, and noted a much friendlier looking blue label.

Blue probably meant water or something.

Through her screen, the drone's proximity alarm buzzed. She changed screens, and she could see that one of the drones had finally taken notice, and was moving to intercept Mister Zappy! As quickly as she could, she the small glowing sphere back to the line, and pushed the 'attack' button.

**-ZAP-**

What happened next, is what Kelly would call a catastrophic-poo-storm. Evidently, the protheans used a different color code system for their labeling. Because the second the the pipe was hit, it immediately burst into flames. In fact, it was more like a flamethrower.

The screen immediately went blank, as Mister Zappy, and the Collector Drone, were immediately engulfed in a flash of bluish white flames.

"Oh dear!" Kelly poked her head back out of her vent, and she saw the chaos that she'd sewn. Mister Zappy did what combat drones do (when they've taken too much damage) and vanished. The Collector however, was flailing about on fire. "Oh gosh, I'm really sorry! I didn't think that there was anything dangerous insi- EEEK!"

She just barely managed to duck her head back in as the rest of the pipe exploded, sending flaming debris and shrapnel all around the maintenance room. This cased a chain reaction as more fires exploded, and soon the entire room was an inferno.

**[[ Achievement Unlocked – You should stick to stamps ]]**

Kelly scrambled back up the ducts, from whence she came, as fast as she could on all fours. Behind her, she could feel the heat on her but as more and more explosions rocked the vents, and clearly indicated that the fire she started was completely out of control.

Oh man, somebody is going to be really pissed at her...

XXxXXxXX

"The horror... The horror..." was all Crewman Hadley could say, as he was forced to watch the god awful show which was happening directly across from his own coffin sized prison.

It was a pretty common fact amongst soldiers, that war; was hell. In fact, it was often even described as surreal. In moments, when the mind was pushed to its brink, many would often enter moments of hyper-reality, when they would often feel disconnected from the world around them. Some would describe it as a sense of sheer fragility, wrapped up in a feeling of pure invincibility. Nothing about it, truly made sense, nor would ever truly be put into words.

"...My God that's hairy…" He said in a deadened tone, that many would often associate with PTSD.

Directly across from him, Power Engineer Ken Donally pressed his bare ass up to the glass of his own pod again. Though Hawthorne couldn't actually hear anything, his mid inserted the sound of a wet squeegee, being pulled across a clean pane of glass. Nearby, a Collector drone, tilted its head as so many English soldiers did in the past, and joined them in a look of WTF.

Ken's... well... Ken's ass, was best described as a weapon of mass destruction. Best used as a last resort, entirely effective, and was often unleashed at the cost of many innocent bystanders, along with his intended target.

The base rumbled.

Everyone looked up at the small opening in their respective pods. This was it, they were probably going to be processed at any second. The thought of being melted down caused the man to shiver.

Ever since Kelly's escape, a Collector Drone had been assigned to their level, and had since been the victim, of what can only be called Scottish Psychological Warfare. Though Ken didn't want to feed into a stereotype, he secretly wished that he had some blue paint on half of face right about now. Screw it, he'd wear a damned kilt, if he could give the Collectors one last Fuck You, before he died.

His time on death row has been one big reflection on his entire life. His achievements, his short comings, and every choice that lead to this moment was currently on trial. Surprisingly, he was oddly okay with the fact that it all had to come to an end. Nobody lived forever right?

But god, what he would do for another chance. There was so many things he still wanted to see in life. So many what ifs, that made up every one of his regrets.

Speaking of the what ifs, he looked over to one pod in particular. The biggest one he regretted.

Gabrielle Daniels looked through the glass of her own pod, and frowned. Ken's 'pale moon' attack, had made the propulsion engineer laugh, when first deployed. So at least he could live with that. He'd gotten one last laugh with her, so it was entirely worth it.

"I'm sorry Gab..." he said, and placed his hands on the glass.

She returned the gesture. Unfortunately, whatever she said she said, he will probably never know.

The base rumbled, much louder, this time. In fact, that was a little _too_ loud. Ken craned his neck, to look.

**-KABOOM-**

Ken, and everyone else inside their pod, found themselves ragdolled against the walls. The Collector Drone, that had been standing near his pod was also thrown, as it fell it accidentally discharged its rifle, and unloaded a full burst at Ken's pod. Ken was showered in thick chunks of glass, and he moved to cover his face. After a few seconds, he found that he was nearly upside down in his own pod.

Donally opened his eyes, and saw that the entire upper half of his coffin was full of holes. Had be not been thrown to the ground, he'd probably be breathing through a couple of new airways in his chest and head right about now.

"Holy shite!" he said and gripped the sides for leverage. Suddenly he noticed that the the rest of the glass, that had been holding him in, was completely spider webbed in cracks. Thinking fast, he pressed his back against the pod and kicked with all of his might.

It worked! The remaining glass shattered and Ken spilled out onto the floor.

"Ah! Fuck! Bugger me with a stick!" he cursed as he noticed that several pieces of glass were stuck along his legs and arms. He'd have to deal with that later however, because he looked over and saw that the Drone was starting to get to its feet.

The adrenaline taking care of most of the pain, ken pushed himself off the ground and made a mad dash at the giant cockroach. Just as the Collector managed to bring his rifle up to bare, Ken tackled it at a full sprint.

Ken Donnaly was by no means a pushover. Sure, he didn't compare to anybody in Shepard's squad, but that sure as crap didn't mean that he didn't know how to fight. As it turns out, being a Scottish engineer, aboard a star ship, will in fact make you the but of every star trek joke in human existence. Throw in some kilt/highlander/bravehart jokes, and Ken has been in more barfights, than every other crew member aboard the Normandy, combined.

Ken and the collector slammed into the the barrel of the collector rifle, and tried to pull it out of his hands. The Scotsman managed to get a foothold, on its very large head, and pulled at the gun with all of his might. Finally, Ken finally managed to wrench the rifle out of its hands, and landed on his back with a thud.

"OOF!..." he fumbled with the gun for a second, and orientated it so he was holding it correctly.

"Hah! Its time to kick some fucking daddybags!" He pointed the rifle at it, and pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, it didn't fire, and to make things worse, the gun started to heat up in his hands. Ken dropped it, and watched in morbid fascination as it started to... decompose.

"Dahm it!" it must have been some sort of IFF feature, in case their weapons got taken from them.

At the sound of heavy footfalls, Ken looked up and saw the Collector (which he was now noting to be a full foot taller than himself) had gotten back up, and was now stalking towards him. It made a an odd chittering noise, and he could see the monster's massive clawed appendages. This monstrosity was probably going to tear him apart. Ken looked over at Gabby's pod, then back at the collector.

He took a brawler's stance.

XxX

Inside the primary control room, far from where Kelly was at, a giant insect like creature moved from panel to panel, as it was coordinating missions on at least two different colonies, and watched over the status of the larval Reaper.

This thing was biological terminal of the Reapers. It was Harbinger itself.

One of its panels, shifted from green to yellow, then a rich red. Clearly something had gone wrong somewhere. Readouts showed catastrophic failure and fire on maintenance deck 12. Harbinger dived into the memories of the drones that were operating that area. Every single Prothian's memories, every experience, was all available to him, and he could access it at any time. Harbinger was an intelligence that exceeded the mind of any being, and could easily handle the sensory data of every collector.

Soon it found itself looking through the eyes of a drone. Living its final moments, it saw it watching the readouts of a large gauge, when something bright and shiny caught its eye.

Like a home movie, it turned its line of sight and saw a glowing sphere of a combat drone. It saw that it was hover right next to one of the primary h-cell fuel lines, and moved to grab it. Unfortunately it never actually made it, as it suddenly arched a bolt of electricity and breached the line. One of the last things it saw, as it was being immolated to death, was something small and red sticking out of the vents. It took Harbinger only a second to realize, that it was a human face and red hair.

One of the human's was loose, and it was sabotaging the base.

**PUT OUT THE FIRES. FIND THE HUMAN AND KILL HER.**

The order was issued to every Collector aboard the station

xXx

Ken continued to see stars, even after he'd closed his eyes, and fought back a wave of nausea. Predictably, he was getting his ass kicked by this thing. It was no krogan, but the prothean's thick exoskeleton was just too hard to try an break with his fists.

He opened his eyes, and suddenly realized that he was on the ground. His vision clouded and he could just make out the Drone's legs stalking toward him again.

The engineer viciously kicked its legs, as hard as he could, and was rewarded by seeing the giant insect-like being tumble to the ground. Ken shambled to his feet, and put a little distance between them.

Thoughts spinning in his head, he brought up his fists. He'd be damned if he was going to lose this thing now. This was the second chance that he'd prayed for, and he'd be buggered if he didn't use it to save everyone. _To save her_ he thought.

He'd heard skittering movements behind him, and groaned. He turned, and sure enough, more fucking collectors were landing on his level.

Awesome.

A moment later, the Drone was on its feet, and coming at him. Too tired, and too hurt to effectively dodge, Ken hit the monster with an uppercut, and sent it staggering. He then quickly followed with a one-two to its face.

The collector responded by backhanding him so ferociously that he actually bounced off the ground, and finally landed on a heap.

Horror welled up in him, as he realized that he'd failed. He was going to die here, and there was nothing he could do about it. Black spots dancing within his vision, he watched as the collector began to advance upon him. Ready to end his life.

Without being able to do much more, Ken smiled at it, and gave it the finger.

The Collector exploded into flames.

"...Huh" he said and examined his own finger. Did he do that? Holy shit, that's an awesome power if he did. For good measure he did it again, but alas, special fuck-you-fire powers really were to good to be true.

"Oh my god! Ken are you okay?" Donally looked up, and smiled for real this time. Kelly Chambers, omnitool still aglow from the incendiary tech she'd launched a second ago. She dashed, and was suddenly at his side.

"Oy, Kelly you're a sight for sore-"

(((Paragon Action)))

Ken was cut off as the Yeoman threw her arms around his neck. For a long few seconds, Ken said nothing as Kelly tried not to cry and continued to hug him.

"I s-saw you f-fall and..." Kelly swallowed as she fought back a sob "I-I thought that... I thought..." she sobbed again, and ken put an arm around her "Its okay Kelly, you eat enough haggis, and believe me you can survive damn near anything." Kelly choked, a sound that might have been a laugh, if you squinted at it.

Kelly pulled back, and gave him a puffy eyed, snot nosed smile.

The sudden sound of gunfire reminded them of the other collectors.

"Shite!" the engineer cursed, and with Kelly's help, she pulled him to his feet feet.

"Come on!" Kelly said, managing to sound confident again. "I know a vent we can escape through!" She tried to pull him along, but he didn't move. He was staring passed the collectors, at one pod in particular.

"I'll be back for you... I promise." he said, and finally followed the Yeoman.

**[[ Achievement Unlocked – The Maintenance Man ]]**

* * *

><p>With the maintenance man, Kelly now has access to omnigel. Which means that she can seal doors, and even set up traps for the collectors. Ken can also repair repair damaged vehicles, thus unlocking the mission to aquire the M-34 Infantry Fighting Vehicle.<p>

(((Choice)))

Recruit the Pretender

Recruit the Custodian

Recruit the Loudmouth

Aquire the M-34 (warning: 2 squad members recommended)


	4. Lets Pretend

"_If I chose to, I could kill every person in this room and walk out unscathed..."_

_That statement was enough to stun the entire passenger load of the SSV Sprint Runner. All around him, The Pretender could hear their hushed voices utter things like, 'He's insane!' or 'That's a man on the edge!'. Nobody dared to make a move against him, and most avoided eye contact with him and minded their own business, hoping not to draw attention to themselves._

_Everyone, with the exception of the person he squared off with. _

_Hilde Strife was a decorated officer. Her uniform, crisp and pressed, was adorned with patches, medals, and pins, that marked everyone of her achievements. It was clear to anyone that she was a veteran, someone who forged her place in her troop through the fires of adversity and hardship. She met his eyes with unwavering steel._

_Like a real life western, the two found themselves in a mexican stand off._

_However, Hilde's subordinate (she wore a similar uniform, though not nearly as decorated) began to sweat, and she stared at the man's pistol while she spoke. "uh... Hilde? Maybe we should just give this guy what he wants..." her eyes moved to the logo on the chest plate of his heavy armor "I think he's an N7 marine..."_

"_I don't care who the hell this guy thinks he is; he's gatta pay for his cookies like everyone else."_

_Everyone watched in mute fascination as a 14 year old Girl-Scout stood her ground against an Alliance Special Forces Commando. _

"_Are you really holding out on me?" The man in N7 armor said, and leaned in "I'll do anything to get the job done! Why I even learned to shove a gun in people's faces fro-"_

"_I thought I'd seen you before!" one of the other passengers said "You're that guy that was at the Eternity Bar. The one that screamed like a girl, when Commander Shepard shot him in the foot!"_

_The entire passenger ship burst out in laughter. Conrad Verner instantly turned a shade of red and began to rub the back of his neck. "Hey, that really hurt! I'm not really used to people shooting at me..." _

"_You're not a real marine?" Hilde asked in disbelief, and eyed the pistol that was magnetically clamped at his hip. Sure enough, the word 'Replica' was stamped in its side. _

_The Girl-Scout was not amused. _

_Being that Conrad was a full head taller than her, she reached up and grabbed Conrad, by his collar, and pulled him down to her level. "You listen, and you listen good..." The little girl stamped on his foot, and Conrad howled in pain. Unknowingly, she managed to nail the same foot that the Commander had shot days before. _

"_...This is not acceptable." she said darkly, and then proceeded to knee him in the balls. She kinda wondered if they can make a customizable patch for hitting Alliance Marines. (maybe the Terminus systems girl-scouts had that) _

_Fortunately, if not a little sadly, Conrad had grown used to everyone's laughter over the years, and it just didn't seem to sting as much as it used to... _

_Mercifully, for Conrad anyway, it was cut short when the light for all passengers to return to their seats came on and the voice of the Captain came came on over the PA system._

"_Attention all passengers, this is your Captain speaking. There is going to be a slight delay in our arrival to the Sharinbak relay. We are detecting some unknown craft ahead, and in the interest of your safety we're going to detour around." _

_Conrad moped back to his seat, and noticed that everyone was pointing out their windows, apparently looking at some oddly shaped space craft that was off in the distance. _

"_Hey look, I think the nose of that thing is glowing..." _

XxXXxX

Harbinger was not a happy reaper. Oh no, he was very irritated indeed. Since Nazarra's death, not only did he have to oversee the birth of the new Human Reaper, he also had to prep the rest of the Galaxy for their now very late arrival.

The entire operation had been one big cluster-fuck after another, and not a single of its objectives had been successfully reached. The rest of the Reaper armada was still trapped in dark space, Commander Shepard had evidentially use a Phoenix Down, or something, because he sure as hell didn't stay dead, and now this problem aboard the station was quickly getting out of hand.

The Prothean station's fire suppression systems had long since decayed from non-use. So when the escaped human had sabotaged the line, it pretty much had the worst possible scenario. He didn't really care, that the number of Collector casualties was rising, he could always make more, but he did care about the rupture in all of the human pods.

That was the big one. According to he could see, at least 4% percent of the vermin were now loose (which was a lot considering how many they had), and causing what could only be called a prison riot. From numerous angles, he could see them putting up a stiff resistance, mostly because the collectors were tying to capture them without actually killing them.

Now this entire debacle required his personal attention. So the reaper made a decision, and decided that these rats were simply more trouble than they were worth. They could always get more, and as soon as their Commander Shepard was killed, then they should finally be able to go on with their plans uninterrupted.

The world fizzled into existence around him, and he was now seeing it through the eyes of a drone.

"WE ARE HARBINGER" it announced, though it was completely unnecessary. Harbinger saw humans running in multiple directions away from his form. Picking one at random, it thew what could only be described as a flaming-biotic-warp. The human scum screamed as the warp aspect of his powers ripped him apart on a molecular level, before he erupted into flames.

That was satisfying.

All around him, the Protheans were doing their best to recapture the humans, and reduce casualties as much as possible. However, trying to be non-lethal was the very reason order had not been attained yet. The collectors only fired their weapons in self defense, and were relying heavily on the seeker swarms to paralyze.

"EXTERMINATE THEM. THEY ARE INSIGNIFICANT."

And as one, every single Collector raised their rifles (or particle beams) and began to fire into the crowds. And for good measure, he also sent a signal for all of the husks to be released.

With a quick look around, he saw that most of the scum in this area were surrounded. And probably wouldn't survive the onslaught in this area. He decided to move to another troubled spot and released control of the Prothean.

XXxxXX

Conrad Verner awoke to the sound of crunching glass, and heavy footsteps. All around him, he could hear he panicked screams of people, desperately trying to run. One by one their cries fell silent as they were run down and paralyzed by the low hum of collector swarms.

Shambling to his feet, The Pretender realized that he was in the crossfire of what looked like a massive prison break. He was suddenly aware of his pod that lay next to him. It lay in a shattered wreck, possibly from when it was blown off the wall from some massive explosion.

_Where the hell am I?_ He thought to himself.

More screams, but this time it was added to the sound of gunfire. Acting on instinct, that only years of dodging gangs of REAL mercs could justify, Conrad ran and took cover behind a couple of crates. Contrary to popular belief, Conrad was not fooled by the logo on his armor. He knew darn well that he was not covered in safe layers of Kevlar, and tough ceramic plating. Hard plastic does precisely squat, in stopping bullets, and getting shot would in fact feel like getting shot.

Which as Commander Shepard has taught him, does indeed suck...

Luckily, most of the deck of... wherever he was, had pretty much descended into chaos. The Pretender put his hands on his head, and tried to re-orientate himself. He didn't know it, but he was still shaking off the effects of Shell Shock. Not to far off, a door opened and a bunch of husks came sprinting into the crowds, attacking everyone in sight. One of the braver men picked up a chunk of debris and brought it down hard on one of the red ones.

It exploded.

Killing itself, and its attacker, everyone else nearby -including Conrad himself- was thrown to the ground again.

"Come on, get up!"

Conrad was suddenly aware of a set of arms pulling him to his feet. Conrad only had a moment to get a look at his helper, and noted that she was female. Pretty, in a done-up sort of way, her perfectly painted eyebrows raised when she saw the N7 logo on his armor. "Are you a soldier?" she asked quickly. Barely heard over over the chaos.

"H... Hey, I know you..." Conrad said. "You're that Loudmouth lady, who alw-"

The woman abruptly shook him. "You have got to be kidding me! Now? I'm not to sure if you've noticed, but we're _under fucking fire?_" She hoisted him up to his feet, and continued to curse her luck, "I actually find a soldier on this fucking hell-hole, and he's retarded!" But before Conrad had a chance to try and protest, there was a sudden thrum of pure power, and one of the collectors started to twitch.

"I WILL DIRECT THIS PERSONALLY" the collector suddenly said, in a voice so loud that it almost sounded like it was coming from inside their own heads. The Loudmouth's eyes widened in terror, and quickly grabbed Conrad by his arm "This way!" She began to lead him to one of the blast doors.

"W-wait, where are we going?" The woman continued to drag him "You're no good as meat shield, if you're not close enough to block bullets!"

"WHAT?"

"Nothing!"

"But what about everyone else?"

"No time! We can't help anyone without a weapon!" as if to prove her point, a lance of light from a particle beam sliced a man cleanly in half.

They ran. Being that they had no idea of the layout of the base, they pretty much just chose a direction that wasn't going to land them in the clutches of a glowing super-collector and took off. They didn't get to far before that thing spoke again. Its voice seemed to resonate in their heads, making their teeth itch.

"THIS HURTS YOU"

Harbinger's flaming-biotic-warp attack came screaming in over their heads, nearly nailing Conrad as he dropped to his knees from the resulting boom. All around him, large shutters were slamming down around him and locking shut. It was pretty obvious that the collectors intended to end this little riot. The pretender looked up, and saw that The Loudmouth hadn't seen him fall as she dived into one of the doors. She slid into a wall and looked back triumphantly, only to see that Conrad didn't make it.

There the two made eye contact, and tried to crawl to each other. They were so close, but the heavy door slammed shut in between them. Conrad could only blink as he realized that his fate was pretty much sealed.

There was a loud, and almost tortured moan that wafted in from around the corner. The sound was enough to drive terror into his very soul.

Shadows. Shadows of something... something big, and bulbous moved across the walls, and continued to move in on him. They hadn't actually seen him yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time. That glowing Collector, the one that called itself Harbinger, was no where to be seen but it was a small comfort at best.

Looking around, Conrad Verner saw that he was surrounded by small sections of metal pipping and support struts had shaken themselves loose.

"uuuUUUUNNNGGGgggg..." He looked up, and saw a withered glowing face of a giant Scion husk come around the corner. It... It was something that his mind may never fully comprehend. A twisted parody of life, this... thing was a crime to everything that could possibly be called good in life, an abomination of cybernetics and hell.

Easily 12 feet tall, it was as if someone took a bunch of those glowing zombies that had helped carried them in and snowballed them together and put it on a set of legs. It had some kind of large arm... cannon thing... sticking out of its grotesque form.

"Oh... Oh my god..."

What was worse, was that it actually had more than one head, and all of them were looking directly at him.

Conrad picked up what used to be a valve lever. His makeshift weapon was heavy, but fit nicely in his hands. However this did little to reassure him as his mind already trying to comprehend that he was going to die.

XXxxXX

"Come on Ken, we gatta get behind cover!" Kelly said, before she yelped as a round whizzed perilously close to her head.

They ran for their lives.

Well... maybe not really run, but they limped _really, really fast. _Kelly Chambers barely weighed a buck ten with her hair wet, and now she was trying to support the weight of an injured 170 pound Scotsman and dodge weapons fire. This particular recipe did not equal speed, which kinda sucked because Collectors could not only run, they could _freaking fly_.

The duo rounded a corner as Kelly awkwardly dug into her right pocket, while trying not to let Ken fall, and pulled out the compacted pistol. "Here! Use this!" she cried as Kelly looked for some place to hide, or more importantly, an escape. Ken grabbed the pistol which unfolded readily in his hand. This was much to Kelly's annoyance, as she couldn't figure out how get that stupid thing to work earlier.

"Wait, I don't get it, are you supposed to push a button or som-"

"Shit! GET DOWN!" Ken roughly pushed her to the ground.

Dropping down as well, he was just barley fast enough to avoid a harsh peel of rifle rounds that would have undoubtedly killed them both. "Ken they nearly shot us!" she exclaimed. The Engineer blinked at her. "Well they're sure as hell not rolling out the red carpet for us! Get behind something!" Ken and Kelly scrambled in opposite directions, Ken took cover behind a nearby terminal while Kelly used a pillar, though it looked more like a cave stalagmite. They found themselves on opposing sides of the hallway, the yeoman was small but the pillar she hid behind was barely big enough for her.

"Ken, use the gun!"

_shit shit shit..._ With his ribs hurting like they did, he highly doubted he was going to be able to aim accurately. But what choice did he have? It was kill or be killed, so he raised the pistol, pulled the slide to load a heat sink and...

what the...

"Kelly, throw me a heat-sink!" he raised his hand to catch the small item, but lowered it as he saw the look she was giving him. The Yeoman blinked at him "A heat-sink?"

"What are you daft? Yes, I need a heat sink!"

Kelly ducked as a rounded pinged so close to her that it actually caused her shields to flair. "I thought those guns didn't fire real bulle-"

"THEY STILL NEED FUCKING HEAT-SINKS!" Ken screamed. Dear god, she didn't have any heat-sinks. Had Kelly really survived survived this long, without even knowing how these guns even worked?

"You don't have to yell!" she said, sounding hurt. There were heavy footfalls of a Collector-freaking-Guardian approaching, which pretty much meant that they were screwed. Ken looked around for something that they could use. Maybe he'd luck out and find some super Anti-Collector gun, or maybe one of those big red Easy Buttons that would make Commander Shepard appear if pressed.

His luck was not meant to be, so he tried the one last thing he knew...

"Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there" he sang, then quickly added "With Commander Shepard..." Nothing happened.

"Ken, what the heck are you doing!" Kelly yelled, then squealed in fear as another round whizzed by.

"I don't fucking know, lass! We'r... "Looking down he saw a toolbox. Undoubtedly, they were probably servicing this terminal when all the explosions started. He opened it, and wouldn't you believe it, he actually found something useful.

An omni-converter! A small wrist mounted tool, that could convert pretty much any known substance into omni gel. Ken looked at the terminal he was hiding behind, and he had a plan.

"Kelly!" she stopped cringing long enough to look at him "I need you to distract that thing for me!" The Technological Yeoman looked at him like he was insane.

"Distract him? How the heck am I supposed to do that?"

"Yell, throw something, flash yer tits at him, I don't fucking care, just buy me a few seconds!" he yelled, secretly hopping that she did the latter, and lined the converter up with his pistol.

"I'm not flashing my boobs at him!" she yelled indignantly, but her eyes lit up as she realized that she had the perfect distraction and fired up her omni tool.

"Mister Zappy I choose you!" she said and her faithful companion materialized in front of her. However, Ken looked up at her in disbelief. No, please tell me she doesn't...

"Use Zap attack!" she cried, and Ken groaned. That had pretty much confirmed it. Kelly was obviously a fan of the ever popular Pokemon series. The hit video game, turned cartoon, turned move, turned elchor play, had pretty much exploded on the Citadel. The turians freaking loved it, and had since expanded the list to over 845,000 different godless creatures. All of them perverted parodies of life.

"Dahm it woman! Its a Combat Drone, not a damned animal!" the yeoman glared at him for a second and pushed the attack button on her omni tool. The combat drone, while non-lethal, proceeded to shock-the-shit out of the Guardian. While the Collector was undoubtedly thinking 'Don't taze me bro!' Ken worked the converter. Dissolving the pistol into a fine paste, he used the vacuum to suck it up, until the the gun was no more.

"What are you gonna do?" Kelly asked as she watched the readouts on her omni tool, two more Collectors had joined the fray and were taking shots at the glowing sphere. Despite its best efforts at evading, the Drone's health was down to 35 percent.

"I'm gonna blow this computer to hell, and make a smoke screen; then we're gonna make a break for it!"

Kelly looked back over and saw a the vent that she herself ha used earlier. She estimated that they were about another hundred meters or so away. With Ken limping the way he was, they'd never make it. Hell, even if it was just her, she still probably wouldn't make it. Her hundred-meter-dash times sucked in high school. Kelly looked over at the hand railing that guarded the ledge, and the yeoman realized the only way that they were going to escape these guys.

The entire collector base was huge but it mostly was cylindrical shaped, and designed more like a warehouse than a space station. That meant that lots of the decks were open to each other, and that there might very well be another level underneath them. Unfortunately, Kelly had no idea how far down that was.

Sadly, the plan was both as suicidal as it was stupid. Our heroes hoped to avoid a gruesome death by Gunshot, by jumping over the railing and... probably die by falling. But if it was any consolation, they might just survive the fall, and only shatter all the bones in their legs. So they'll get to live for a whole extra hour, until the collectors find their crippled bodies, and _then_ shoot them.

...so... this basically was plan A.

Seeing that his converter was full, he jammed it into one of the ports of the terminal he was using as cover, and began to unload into it. It made a curiously satisfying noise, sort of like a can of cheese-whiz being emptied, as the computer began to smoke.

"When I give the word" Ken said as gel started to bubble out of the crevices of the terminal "we make a break for the it!" he said. The yeoman nodded, but her doubt was very much evident on her face.

"Now!"

The combat drone had finally 'died', and the Collectors raised their rifles at the fleeing Cerberus crewman. However, right about then the terminal overloaded, and exploded. The explosion wasn't lethal by any means, but it did throw a lot of bits of plastic and smoke into the air, causing the Collectors to raise their hands to protect their eyes.

But that momentary pause in gunfire was all that they needed. Kelly grabbed Ken, and together they made their way to the ledge. Ken's face contorted to horror, as he finally realized what she wanted to do.

"Are you fucking daft woma-"

"JUST JUMP!"

"OH SHITE!"

The Collector trio recovered from the blast, and were soon joined by more reinforcements. as they flew in they raised their guns and fired into the smoke cloud, absolutely obliterating everything on the other side, but didn't manage to land a single round on the Cerberus crewmen as they screamed and flailed like lunatics over the ledge.

And for one insanely long moment... as they were backlit by the exploding terminal, wreathed by a hail of gunfire, and undoubtedly plummeting to their doom, did Kelly wonder just _where in the hell_ was Commander Shepard.

XxxMeanwhilexxX

Shepard stood proudly against the hot Tuchankan sun, and surveyed the handiwork of his latest adventure. 2 dozen dead Veran, a hand full dead Klixen, and not to mention most of the ritual testing ground that went with Grunt's Rite.

… Oh, and lets not forget the 200 metric tons of dead thresher maw, right behind him. Shepard laughed, and shook his head. Grunt's right of passage, into adulthood, had brought up fond memories of the commanders own 18th birthday party. Ironically, it was also the first time an elected official ever screamed the words 'political shit storm' at him.

The Commander sighed... good times.

Shepard had only been here two days and already he wondering if Tuchanka would be a nice place to retire. He was finding that this was probably the only place in the galaxy he could ever really _truly_ unwind without having to deal with C-sec constantly riding his ass with 'boo-hoo, you can't pull out your weapons here' or 'boo-hoo, please stop hacking random terminals for their credits'.

Bunch of whiners, is what they are.

I mean, for god sakes, have you _seen_ Krogan politics? You basically head-but the opposing party and scream "Your argument is invalid!". The commander never considered a career in politics, but at this rate, he might very well head-but his way into Krogan presidency in just under a year. Holy crap, Tuchanka freakin rules.

While entertaining fantasies of how awesome it would be to have a Krogan councilor, he heard the collective groans and weary footsteps of his squad mates as they approached.

"Ugh" he heard Miranda's weary voice "please tell me that we're done with this forsaken dirt ball."

"Guddamnit, Shepard. I'm being paid to fight Collectors, not go around and pick fights with Thresher-fucking-maws so the guddamned lizard can learn were babies come from." Zaeed's voice complained in from somewhere. The Commander picked up his Cain and walked up to them.

"Yea, yea, we'll get going... Hey Miranda?"

"Yes Commander?"

"How much food do you think a Varen eats a day?"

"Keela! Shepard, please tell me you're not thinking about trying to adopt one of those things, are you?" the quarian asked worriedly. She remembered how happy Shepard was when that former pit varen started following them around.

"...No?" he lied

While Shepard weighed the possibilities of a pet veran eating his hamster, a krogan shuttle flew low over head. Its markings clearly indicating that it belonged to Uvenk.

"Hah! Good I want more." Grunt said, as he pounded his fists together in anticipation. The shuttle landed nearby, and finally Uvenk and his krantt, all five of them, walked out.

Uvenk jumped up on top of a fallen pillar and looked down on Grunt and Shepard. "You live and you brought down the thresher maw. No one has done that in generations. Urdnot Wrex was the last."

Shepard shrugged "Meh. What can I say? We're equal opportunity ass-kickers."

Shepard's comment only caused the Krogan Pure Blood to grin victoriously, but focused on Uvenk first. He'd gloat later. "My krantt gave me strength beyond my genes. Which are damned good."

Uvenk leapt off the column and approached the both of them, eyeing them critically. "This will cause discussion. I wonder… you say you are pure? No alien meddling in your construction? Just the warlord Okeer?"

Shepard stepped up. "C'mon Uvenk, wanna give it a shot? Cause I'll tell you right now, your ass is grass, and we've got the weed-whacker."

Uvenk didn't rise to his baiting. "Not yet. This deserves… consideration."

Now Grunt was suspicious as well as wary. "Why? I'm not getting any more 'natural'."

"You are powerful. You are a mistake. But your potential could tip the current balance of the cla-"

Uvenk was cut off by a lout growl from Grunt. Uvenk, this varen, was spitting on his father's name. On Shepard's name. And now he's going to throw him some worthless spot, on his worthless clan? "RRWWAAAAAA-" The pureblood marched foreword, and got in the older krogans face. Tali readied her omnitool while everyone else geared up for a fight, the krogan all raised their shotguns.

"-AAARR- I AM TIRED OF YOUR DISINGENUOUS ASSERTERIONS!" Grunt roared and head butted Uvnek with enough force to cause everyone to wince. The Clan leader fell backwards, probably unconscious, more than likely dead.

Silence...

Nobody said a word.

The wind blew, a Krogan tumble weed blew by, and finally somebody coughed. Everyone was absolutely stunned into disbelief over what had just happened. Everyone, of course, with exception of Commander Shepard. He was elbowing Miranda, and proudly pointing at Grunt.

"I taught him that!" he whispered while wiping a fatherly tear out of his eye.

Miranda facepalmed.

"I swear they grow up so fast... one day you're flushing them out of their tank, and the next thing you know-"

"Commander" Jacob interupted "I'm really happy for you, and imma let you finish, but we could sure use some orders for all of these shotgun-weilding-krogan out here..."

"Oh right, I almost forgot about that!" Shepard paused, and weighed his options as he considered the best possible coarse of action.

"DUST THESE BITCHES!"

XxX

"I IMMEDIATELY REGRET THIS!" Kelly screamed as she clutched to Ken and fell. Honestly, in her heart, Kelly had hoped for for her luck to hold out, and that maybe they would discover some sort of catwalk or something. Neither one of them were at the correct angle to look directly down, but they watched the world around them accelerate 'up' at an alarming rate. At this point -unless they landed on a big friggen pillow- they were done for.

"I WAS THE ONE WHO SPILLED COFFEE ON THE CIC TERMINAL!" Kelly screamed. Ken snapped his head to the Yeoman's dying confession and scowled. He'd spent _days_ replacing circuit boards and air drying Holo-Emitters, because _somebody_ broke the rules about not bringing food out of the mess hall. "WANKER!" Ken managed before the world around them came to a sudden, and very messy halt.

XxxxX

I was on my way home! Conrad thought, as he hefted the broken lever like a major league baseball batter. That massive... thing... with its huge arm, and its tiny legs was waddling over to him, and he was trapped.

Somehow, he kind of felt that this was kind of his own fault for tempting fate; for thinking that his life couldn't get any worse. He was broke, humiliated, shot in the foot by Commander-fucking-Shepard himself, and to top it all off he'd been served divorce papers by his wife, electronically... from her scumbag boyfriend's omni-tool no less!

Conrad's life was a big pile of fail.

He'd failed at trying to do good. (that stupid undercover cop, wasn't a cop at all!) He'd failed at being a husband, and finally he failed at trying to impress Commander Shepard. All he wanted to do, was to bring a little bit of hope into the galaxy, like Shepard did. He wanted to, for once in his life, to do something he could look back on and be proud of.

He just wanted to be a hero... If only just for one person, for just one moment.

But now here he was. Lost. And trapped in this place that smelled of burnt flesh, and overworked machinery. And about to take on... what he could only describe as a 12 foot scrotum on tiny legs. The Scion lumbered foreword, then pointed its cannon like arm directly at Conrad. The Pretender watched the tip of it glow as it pumped eezo through its body, and thus began a mass effect reaction.

The Pretender lowered his makeshift bat as he realized that he was even going to fail at putting up a decent fight. Like a man condemned, he resigned hims... He suddenly stopped and looked around.

"What is that sound?"

He looked around when he heard it. Oddly enough, it sound like... screaming? It sounded human, and suddenly realizing that it was getting closer, he looked up.

"...aaaaaaaahhhhhhhHHH**HHHHH-"**

They came screaming in, like they were trying to recreate a scene out of the movie Armageddon. However, instead of a meteor the size of Texas, an awesome soundtrack by Areosmith and vaguely empty plot, it was... well, it was a set of red heads.

And they landed right on top of the Scion.

Sort of like popping God's pimple, the massive husk exploded with a wet _slap_ that sounded like a soaked towel hitting pavement. Conrad barely had time to raise his hand in time to stop the blast of white goo as everything, within a 30 ft radius, was instantly painted white.

Feeling a little like an asari porn star, on the set of Fornax Studios, Conrad wiped the white sludge off of his face and carefully ventured foreword. He watched in bewilderment as the two redheads groaned and rolled over on their disgusting cushion.

"Holy crap! Are you guys okay?" The Scion had pretty much popped like a balloon. Conrad found himself peeling off slimy gray flaps of 'husk skin' off of our heroes, and saw that they were very much alive.

"oooohhhh..." The petite, red headed girl groaned "I think... I busted... my gallbladder..." Kelly groped around for her partner. She found his shoulder and gave him a weak nudge "Ken... you okay?" The Scotsman in question rolled over.

"Yeah dude, are you okay? That looked like that really hurt."

Ken finally opened his eyes, "...actually, I think the fall knocked my nervous system out of whack... I don't feel any pain at all!" The Maintenance Man smiled, then abruptly stopped. "Oh. Wait. There it is... oooooowwwwwww" he groaned.

"C'mon you guys, lets get you out of here." Conrad said, as he heard the sound of more husks moaning in the distance.

* * *

><p><strong>[[Achievement Unlocked – The Pretender]]<strong>

With The Pretender, Kelly now has access to Conrad's bypass kit that's built right into his suit. This means that Kelly is able to break into any shipping containers that she finds, and is able to stock up on heat-sinks, medigel, and any extra weapons that they find. This also unlocks the mission to aquire level 2 Assault weaponry. Though Conrad's armor is only a replica, it is able to hermetically seal itself, thus allowing him to be able to function in Level 1 Hazardous environments.

(((Choice)))

Recruit the Loudmouth (Bonus: level 1 weapons upgrade)

Recruit the Custodian (Bonus: level 1 weapons upgrade)

Aquire the M-34 (Bonus: level 1 weapons upgrade)

Aquire Level 2 Assault weapons


	5. News Without Mercy PT1

She was alone.

Alone, frustrated, and lost in a place where the dreams of little children go to die, the Loudmouth growled (Quietly, as she was in a room full of inactive husks) and continued to sift through a pile of junk. Like Kelly, she had inevitably ran into one of the random dumpsites of personal items that were amongst the dragons teeth.

"...And what do we have here...?" she muttered to herself, and pulled out a small handheld device and held it close to her face. On the side, it said '**Emergency Personnel Long Range Distress Beacon**'.

She rolled her eyes, and tossed the unwanted device like a petulant child might discard a crappy Christmas present. It landed next to the other items she had no use for, like the shotgun, the water purifier, all those first aid kits, and that copy of 'How To Escape Being Kidnapped: Enemy Spacestation Addition'. "Why is there so much useless shit just lying around?" She asked, and quietly moved to the next pile.

There was a loud moan, and the woman resolutely refused to looked up. Opting instead to continue her hunt, she forged on with almost obsessive determination.

_Obsessive _would be the only word that would describe this situation. For you see, out of all the people being held captive aboard the station; the Loudmouth was the only one who had no intention of leaving.

At least, not until she got what she came for anyway.

Abandoning the pile, she quietly moved to the next area that looked promising, and got to work. A lot of people would probably call her crazy for wanting to take advantage of a situation like this. More than likely, she was going to end up as one of these corpses that littered the ground...

There was a loud moan, and one of the husks twitched.

...Or worse, one of the corpses above her, that weren't allowed to die...

She supposed that she should be thankful that she wasn't being shot at anymore. Which was fine, but when that blast door closed; she turned around and discovered she was locked in a room full of Dragons Teeth.

Hundreds, and hundreds of dragons teeth. All of them complete with their own writhing body, probably just waiting to eat her brain, or whatever it is that they did.

You know, there's a certain point in time, when things just start being ridiculous. Being kidnapped, and taken aboard an enemy space station? Sure, why the hell not? It's not like she had anything else better to do with her Saturdays. Then to find out that they're all an extinct race of beings, who are melting people down for some unknown nefarious purpose? Screw it, she'll make a whole weekend out of this shit.

But then to find out that they're hiding an entire forest of glowing zombies? Really? C'mon, is that reeeaally necessary? For a moment, she kinda found herself having an odd 'Samuel L Jackson' moment, where she wanted to scream that she is tired of these muthafucking surprises, on this muthafucking base'.

Hell, at this rate, she wouldn't bat an eyelash if there _really were_ an immortal race of sentient star-ships, just waiting outside of dark space.

She rubbed her temple, and tried not to think about it. Suddenly, her hand brushed up against something that she instantly recognized, and looked down. "... Aha!" She said, then instantly winced as she suddenly remembered that there were husks not even a meter above her. The temporary shock only lasted a second as her glee returned, and she pulled the small hand-held object out with her hands.

A digital holo-camcorder! Turning it over, she found the power button and pushed...

And it worked!

It was an older model, but it still came with a Micro Ezzo Powercell, the same thing that powers omnitools and kinetic barriers of armor. She at least didn't have to worry about battery life. The lone woman checked the memory card, and frowned when it read full. She pushed the play button, to see what was filling up the memory. A video came into view, and showed a man who was huddling inside of what appeared to be a storage shed.

_"...Oh god, I can hear them trying to get in. T-the rumors were true. The Collectors are real, and they've taken the whole colony. Please, if I don't make it, my life's work must go on. In this video is the key steps on how to make unlimited, clean, and efficient energy for the whole galaxy to sha-"_

"meh." The Loudmouth said, and promptly pushed 'delete'. The environmental hippies already had their day, when she covered that EEZO tanker spill at the Horsehead nebula.

Time for some _real _news!

Switching over the the night-shot mode, she panned the camera around, taking in as much of the macabre scene as possible. She cleared her throat. "Tonight at 9. Kidnapping, brutal experimentation, and one of the biggest conspiracies against mankind is uncovered." she said in a voice that was objective and clear. A persona, that had been forged over a long career of being in front of the camera.

"I must warn you, that there are no words for the images you are about to see..." She stopped, when she made the mistake of actually looking up. Through the camera, she could actually see their faces. See their tortured looks, that were frozen in a moment of fear, and agony.

The Loudmouth realized that she had to leave. She couldn't allow this to happen to herself.

But something stayed her hand and kept her finger on the record button. Something that she really couldn't define. It was something that told her that this was where she needed to be. That by telling their story, she could somehow partially vindicate not only them, but also herself in some small way.

Because whether or not she survived this thing, she knew that the life was going to go on. And if you ignore that one moment where everything you've ever wanted could be taken in a single grasp, then it would be gone.

This was the moment, that she had waited her entire professional career for. This was the kind of moment, that for better or for worse, would change her whole goddamned life. For the first time in her life she had a true shot at victory, and she'd be damned if she didn't take it.

To be here, beyond the Omega-4 relay, she was sitting on the story of the millenia! She busied her mind in wondering what her prime time spot would sound like when she was rescued and busted this story wide open.

"...Tonight at 9..." one of the husks gave a particularly loud moan, and a deep chill went down the Loudmouth's spine. She looked up and swallowed hard "... Action news reporter: Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani, found brutally mauled to death by glowing zombies."

_How the hell did i even get here...?_ she wondered.

XXX

"_Hello? Are you in need of medical aid in there?" A gruff, two toned voice of a turian asked, as he continued to knock on the public restroom door._

_Khalisah's eyes were screwed shut as she ran a hand up the bridge of her nose, checking to see if it was broken or not. God, she hoped that she didn't have to face him at the moment. She looked around for some tissue, or anything to hopefully stop the blood that seemed to just gush out of her nose._

_Unfortunately for her, her luck was not to be as she heard the hiss of pneumatic pistons, from the door. This was soon followed by the heavy footfalls of armored boots._

_The reporter's eyes darted around again for anything to clean herself up with. Her image was her career, and right now she was a mess. Finding nothing, she was about to dive into one of the stalls, when the C-Sec officer finally stepped into view. Her shoulders slumped, and she realized that there was just no point in trying to run anymore._

_Like so many other problems in her life, she decided to just say 'screw it' and meet him head on._

_Noting that he at least looked sympathetic, the loudmouth put on her best face and turned to face the music. She decided that the turian's rich green eyes were accented nicely behind his white face paint. Though she tried to stand tall, proud, he only stared at the blood that ran down from her nose, all the way to her chin._

"_I hope you will forgive me for walking into the female washroom." he said, as he began to fish around the many compartments of his armor. "But it is my duty to escort you to the medical ward." The officer finally found what he was looking for, and produced a white handkerchief, or at least the turian equivalent of one. Kahlisah snatched it angrily out of his talons._

"_No, i'm fine. I just... I just need a few moments to clean up in here." She looked in the mirror, and began to wipe herself off. But not before giving him a grateful glance "Thanks... uh..."_

"_Chellick. Officer Chellick." he finished for her. Being a veteran officer, Chellick was pretty good at spotting distress amongst the many races of the Citadel, human females were particularly expressive. So he knew enough to give her a few minutes to vent herself as she wiped her face angrily. Muttering about 'asshole hanar' and 'new Blasto movie is going to suck anyway'._

_He cleared his throat after a moment, and the loudmouth gave him an irritated glance. "What?"_

"_I believe we have some other matters to attend to. One being that I need a statement, if I am to press charges." To his surprise, she actually laughed at that._

"_Yea, right. It's bad enough that I just got socked in the face by a renegade jellyfish, on live extranet feeds, but his lawyers will tear me apart if I try." She turned on the water, and began to wash off her face. "Plus, I'll have to deal with those psycho fans..." The turian's face drew into a grim look. Like any turian, he didn't seem to like the thought of a crime going unpunished._

"_Well, if it makes you feel any better, I find his movies to be distasteful. You would be surprised at how many of our recruits try to emulate his actions. It's just bad police work, very undisciplined."_

_Khalisah smiled to herself, and she found that she did feel a little better. Of course the turians wouldn't be fans. They were always so by the book. The odd moment of kinship, if only for their dislike of baddass hanar, made her feel like she could loosen up around him, and Chellick seemed willing to lend an ear. "God, just once, I would love to get a real fucking story. 10 years... 10 years, I've been doing this, and all I ever get is random tabloid bullshit." she said. She pulled out her purse and rummaged through for her make-up. After a few moments of searching however, she decided that she just didn't care._

"_So, why not go find one then?" Chellick asked, like it was the easiest answer in the world. Kalisah scoffed._

"_I wish it were that simple. My producers give me my assignments. I have to report what they tell me." The turian officer seemed to consider this. Chain of command was something that every turian understood._

_However, that didn't mean that there weren't loopholes._

"_Sooo... have your 'producers' given you your next assignment yet?" The word 'Producers' rolled off of his tongue awkwardly. He had no idea what the word meant, but judging from the context, he assumed that it was some form of superior officer. The almost conspiratorial tone caused Khalisah to give the non-human a long suspicious look._

"_No, not yet..."_

"_And should you happen to come across anything newsworthy, while you had your camera on hand, then would your 'producers' object to using it?"_

"_Well... no i guess they wouldn't... Why? You know of a story somewhere?"_

"_An old friend of mine, Garrus Vakarian, mentioned something about your Commander Shepard going out to investigate Collector attacks on random human colonies. And i've learned over the years that 'newsworthy things' tend to happen around that human."_

_Al-Jahlani almost dismissed the idea outright; tracking down Shepard was a good way to get her ass knocked out again. But the colony attacks... they were only a rumor, but if Shepard was investigating them, then there had to be _something _to them. Right? _

_Plus, she did have a lot of vacation time saved up..._

_The loudmouth paused to give it some thought. The idea was ludicrous, and she might get into a lot of trouble. Hell, they might even fire her over it. Never let her report anything, ever again._

_But would that really be such a bad thing?_

_She turned to the mirror, and took a long look at her reflections bloodied face... How many times had somebody hit her over the years, in the pursuit of a dream that may never come? How many times had she watched her own ratings fall, while reporters like Ada Wong or those other nameless hacks enjoyed the limelight. Each time, bumping her time-slot further, and further?_

_How many more times could she watch herself get passed up for the good assignments, before she admitted that her hopes was dead?_

_...When was if ever going to be her time to shine?_

_Kahlisah watched as the woman in the mirror clenched her jaw. She watched her hands grow into fists, in indignation, for allowing herself become a punching bag (both metaphorically and physically) again, and again._

_Could she really go back to the Wusterland newsroom, and be snickered at for getting her face pounded again?_

"_No" her own image said._

_Khalisah turned to the turian, and gave him a long look. "Do you know where Commander Shepard is?" The turian shook his head. "I'm afraid not. However, i heard he was at that colony, Horizon, that'd just been hit. Perhaps that would be a good place to start."_

"_Thanks... You know, you're pretty sneaky for a turian." Chellick shrugged._

"_I just believe in working all of the angles."_

xxxx

xXx

Harbinger buzzed through the air on insect like wings. With great skill, either instinctive of the Drone he possessed or through some higher knowledge, the reaper expertly touched down and surveyed his surroundings. Chunks of glass, plastic and metal lay all around him, crunching beneath his feet as he toured around.

Not that any of that really mattered. Because what really had his attention was one very large and **very flat** Scion. That and the fact that no matter where he looked, he didn't see the corpse of that wretched redhead anywhere. Harbinger now had a sneaking suspicion that she was still alive and loose on this base somewhere.

The physical embodiment of the reaper looked over the entire scene with the same critical eye that you might see from the lead detective of a CSI show . The entire scene would have probably made an interesting episode, because he had no clue as to what the hell happened here. Well that and if Horatio Caine just went around from room to room, announcing his own name like... actually i take it back; This is _exactly_ like CSI.

Regardless, sifting through their memories again, he watched her. Slowed down by her injured companion, pursuing her had been easy. She was pinned down by an endless stream of weapons fire, and other units were already taking position to flank her. He was pretty sure she wasn't even armed.

Then suddenly, the terminal near her exploded and she just vanished. Vanished! Much like his hopes of having competent slaves, she just disappeared. It just didn't make sense.

Sifting further through the memories of all of his Prothean slaves, he saw that pretty much all of the loose humans aboard the base had been killed, or re-captured. The Collectors were piling their corpses this very moment. But the one he wanted, the redhead that started this entire mess was still out there somewhere. And now the only clue he had, was a Scion that had somehow been popped like an overripe melon.

And what concerned him more, was the uniform she was wearing. Harbinger knew full well of Cerberus, and of commander Shepard's mission.

Was she one of the specialists that Shepard had picked up? Had Harbinger sorely underestimated this frail looking rat? Turning around to look over the scene again, something caught the corner of his eye, and Harbinger found itself looking at a damaged vent at the end of the hallway.

On an inspired whim, the Reaper brought up the entire ventilation grid for the base. Sure enough, they ran everywhere and could easily hold a human. Next Harbinger brought up the event logs, and there have been a lot of sensor trips. They could mean nothing, harmless false readings from sensors that were over 50,000 years old...

Or... somebody might be crawling around in there.

There was a long moment of silence, and the reaper tapped into its vast intelligence to run thousands, even millions of scenarios on how to deal with this. Finally Harbingers 4 eyes flared bright orange (sort of the reaper equivalent of a smirk, or the closest approximation of putting on sunglasses).

That piece of red headed trash might as well just sit back and relax...

…Because Harbinger was going to _personally direct_ her demise. (YEEEAAAAAAAA-)

XXXxxxXXX

'_God, is this what i've been doing to Mr Pickles?'_

Kelly's thoughts wandered back to her childhood pet on Eden Prime. Her parents had bought her a hamster, a real one, shipped all the way from Earth itself. Eden Prime was still pretty small at the time, so there weren't a whole lot of other kids around. And being that there weren't any cities to visit, Kelly spent much of her time finding ways to entertain herself. So a combination of sheer boredom, surplus irrigation tubing, and an endless amount of free time had led her to construct some of the most complex hamster mazes ever seen.

Now, as Kelly crawled through these stupid ducts, did she wonder if Mr Pickles was really crawling through those tubes with the hopes of finding a way to blow up the 'evil Kelly base', rescue any other hamster he may find, and probably steal the rest of her banana chips that she kept as treats.

The thought of an adorably armed, Rambo-hamster, pulling off a tiny suicide mission made her smile.

_Mr Pickles sure did love those banana chips..._

"Uh... Excuse me, miss Chambers? Do you happen to know where we're going? Or what our next move is, for that matter?" The pretender asked, and Kelly nodded.

"Just Kelly" she corrected "And our next move is to go to the Citadel, buy all of the hamsters, and set them free."

"...What?"

"Err.." Kelly stopped and blinked as she realized that she'd said that in her outside voice. "I mean, I know a spot where we can rest, and not be shot at." Ken cleared his throat, indicating that he had the next question.

"And, why do we have ta' drag this heavy arse case with us?"

"Because there's stuff inside of it, and we need stuff." Kelly said simply. Our heroes, while making their way to the vents, found a heavy looking locker on the ground and took it with them. After spending the day being shot at, jumping off ledges, and accidentally blowing up half the base, she would literally take _anything_. If it was just full of clothes, then she'd be happy to not be covered in crusted Scion goo. If it was weapons; sweet. Better than plan A, which was Operation Moving Target.

But, what Kelly was really hoping for was some food... her body felt like it was basically running on fumes. From the time that she was dragged off the Normandy, up until now, she hadn't eaten anything. Which was a good 24 hours ago. And, as it turns out, running and screaming for your life will burn a lot of calories.

Luckily for her, the Collector base was turning out to be more like her college fraternity's dorm room, than an actual military installation.

She knew from experience, that the Collectors just left useful items lying around all over the place. Why? She didn't know, it didn't really make sense to her either. But seeing as they just left piles of corpses lying around in huge piles, she assumed that they just dumped crap wherever it was convenient. It was like this place was being run by a bacheler overlord or something. Her perfect memory flashed the map before her eyes, and she felt relieved that they were almost at their destination.

"We're here." The she announced wearily, and her two partners watched as she approached and air filter. It was slightly slanted, and looked as if it had been removed, then placed back on backwards.

"I found this place earlier, when i was crawling around. I put this filter like this, so i'd know if anybody else came through here." she said and pried it off. Ken and Conrad both raised their eyebrows, as it was actually a pretty good idea.

Our unlikely heroes soon found themselves within a dark confines of a maintenance juncture. It was a spot where most of the vents came together, and sort of formed a little room where things like fuses and circuit breakers could be found. As a bonus, the air was dry and cool, so it offered some reprieve from the oppressive heat and humidity of the Collector base. It would have been nice if it wasn't so darned dark, but Kelly had her omni tool flashlight. Plus, her tech-armor made her into a walking low-light lamp. Ken followed next, and offered a hand to help the pretender down. He was having a little trouble, being that his armor was so bulky.

"Alright, Lass" Ken glanced at her. In the low light, he could see her slump against the wall and slouch in exhaustion "So what's the plan then? Is Shepard going to meet us somewhere?" Conrad perked up when he mentioned the spectre.

"C-Commander Shepard? He's coming here? To this base?" he asked and felt the need to shield his foot.

"Aye. The Commander is on a mission to come _Michael Bay the shit outta this place._" He said with a hopeful, if slightly vindictive look in his eyes. However, his expression fell as he saw the forlorn look on the Yeoman's face. "... He...he is here somewhere, right?"

"He's not here..." Kelly said wearily "Or at least, i haven't seen him if he is."

"Really? Well what about the explosions, an' shite. You gatta admit, that was some Shepard-level destruction back there. I musta seen a million credits worth of crud get blown to hell..." (**It was like that when i got here! progress:** Cr 2,356,813/1,000,000,000)

"That was sorta me... I did it on accident." Kelly could feel both men stare at her, and she shifted uncomfortably.

"Really? You did that?" Ken asked, and watched as she nodded.

"I didn't think that everything would catch fire like that..."

Being that there was enough room to stand, Conrad lumbered to his feet and crossed the room to her. Kelly unexpectedly found herself caught up in a hug of appreciation. "Well thank you... Kelly?" She nodded "You saved my life. My name is Conrad Verner, by the way."

The name caused Ken to raise an eyebrow, and muttered "you gatta be shitting me..."

Finally having a moment of relative safety, Kelly got her first real look at the man. She glanced at the N7 logo on his chest, and her eyes bulged. She'd been too preoccupied with trying to not get shot to care who this man was, or who he might be affiliated with. People wearing armor in space was pretty common. Honestly, she was just happy that he wasn't trying to kill her. Plus another ally was always good to have.

But an N7 special forces commando? That's like the freaking jackpot! Oh dear lord, she'd have his child, right-here-right-now, if he agreed to lead this little mission. To have somebody who knew what they were doing? Oh that'd be awesome!

Kelly wet her lips "Excuse me, sir?" Conrad paused at her odd change in tone. "Uh... Yes?"

"Are you part of the N7 program?" she asked hopefully. Her mind already buzzing with anticipation over what his specialization could be. A brave and aggressive Vanguard? A sneaky Infiltrator? …Or maybe the rarest of the rare; the ever elusive Biotic Adept!

Oh the possibilities!

Conrad began to rub the back of his head, "Uhh, that might be a little complicated to explain..."

Ken scoffed, and pulled at the latches of their mystery case. "Hell no he's not an N7. That wanker's not even a soldier, period." Kelly turned, and blinked at the maintenance man. "Really? Do you know this man?"

"Aye. He used to be my physics teacher, back at the academy." Kelly felt her shoulders slump as her hope faded. She turned back to him with a slightly defeated look. "Is this true?" she asked him, and Conrad nodded.

"Well... err... yea." He admitted reluctantly. Conrad noted the way that the small woman was looking at his armor. He rapped his knuckles on it, and even Kelly knew that the hollow sound of plastic was all wrong. "It's a replica..." He said pathetically.

"...Why are you going around in fake N7 armor for? How come you're not teaching at the academy?"

"Well... That's kind of a long story..."

"Crazy sod started obsessing over the Commander, so they fired him." Ken interrupted again, and cursed, as he discovered that the case was locked.

"...Or, it's a very short story." Conrad muttered, he scowled at the Scotsman for a second before turning back to Kelly. "I... I'm really sorry..." He said, and lowered his eyes. For the first time, did he ever truly feel like a fraud.

"Hey..." Kelly said softly, and the Pretender managed look back at her face. It was kind and understanding. Something that he felt that he didn't deserve.

"I quit my job on the Citadel, to go join a terrorist organization. I know what its like to try and get away from a mediocre life." She said, and placed a kind hand on his shoulder.

Their moment came to an abrupt end as Ken swore at the lockbox, and gave it a harsh kick.

"Sodding thing is locked tighter than Miranda's uniform! This is a no-go."

"Really?" Conrad said. "let me take a look at that." Suddenly interested, he saw an opportunity to actually be useful to his new friends. Ken still looked very doubtful though. "That thing's got a 10-digit key code lock. There's no way you can guess the code to that."

The Pretender however didn't seem all that concerned, as he casually opened a compartment on his armor and pulled out his bypass kit. Kelly watched him get to work, and finally decided to ask the very obvious question.

"Does anybody else find it weird that all of this stuff is even here? I mean, we passed like 3 of those red first-aid boxes on the way to this spot. Do you think those Collectors even use Medigel?"

Ken made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "Nah... Y'know, I've been thinking about that too, actually. A whole base, right past the Omega-4 Relay? If it's really as old as the Protheans, then this place should have died off a long time ago."

"What do you mean?" Conrad asked, pausing from his work, he looked up.

"Well nuthin lasts forever, lad. I mean, anything that moves has to be replaced eventually. And the gravity? Mass Effect generators for that kind of thing need eezo, and that eventually runs out.

Ah' bet they just go around, clobbering ships, and stripping them of everything they need. And bugger all the rest of the stuff they don't use."

Conrad shrugged "Makes sense... I guess..."

Kelly watched as Conrad established links in the locking mechanism. With surprisingly skilled hands, the Pretender worked the Bypass tool of his fake armor. Though every lock by every company was different, the _concept_ was still the same. Bypass the inhibitor nodes, and allow power to flow into the actual locking mechanism.

How the heck does Conrad even know how to do this, you ask? When Conrad set out to go right wrong's in the galaxy, it was by no means a cheap endeavor. Contrary to what some cartoons may have you believe; one does not simply go buy a shuttle, paint the words 'Mystery Machine' on the side, and go solve crime.

Docking fees had to be paid, people sometimes needed to be bribed, and food (Scooby snacks, if you will) sure wasn't free. Pretending to be a specter would waive a lot of the costs, but the major ports had Biometric scanners. And he sure as hell wasn't fooling those. But Conrad, if nothing else, was a survivor. He quickly learned that peeking into crates, and salvaging parts was a great way to earn extra credits.

Sure, is may sound dishonest, but you try picking a fight with an angry Vorcha over a 3-day-old varen skewer, and let me know how well yourmorals fare.

The metal lockbox popped open with a -click- and all three of them smiled.

Guns. Glorious, wonderful, Collector hurting guns...

The box, that they'd been toting around, turned out to be an Alliance Care Package. Shuttles would fly into combat zones, and drop these bad boys off behind friendly lines, and give soldiers a chance to rearm and resupply. Kelly counted, 2 assault rifles, 2 shotguns, a few pistols, and an entire pack of heat-sinks.

"_Swaaaaaag"_ Kelly said, as she picked up a Clanflarex Pistol. Ken Pulled out an assault rifle for himself, and Conrad. Each of the weapons were shiny and clean, almost as if they were brand new. The Scotsman pulled back the slide, and was able to confirm that their guns had never been fired before. For the first time in a while, things were actually starting to look up.

"Well lads, I think its time we went and had ourselves a little chat withe the asshole who's running this place." Ken said the word 'Chat' like really meant 'Shoot'. Which he did.

The Yeoman decided that she didn't like that look on his face "Guns aren't the answer to everything you know..."

"Yea, try telling that to Shepard. I bet he goes around solving problems all day, using only his words."

And it was actually kind of funny that he said that. Because at this moment, Commander Shepard _actually was_ solving a problem this very moment, using only his words...

xx Meanwhile xx

In the shattered ruins of a Tuchankan hospital, Commander Shepard sighed heavily and tried not to rub the temples of his forehead. He knew that it wouldn't do anything to stop his headache, and besides, it was just plain rude. His streak of completing loyalty missions, at breakneck speeds, had hit an unexpected snag in the form of the longest winded Krogan to have ever lived.

"**...but Weyrloc Gold; the Chief of Chiefs, has ordered to that you be given leave to flee and spread the message of our coming!"** The Krogan boomed, and continued to pace back in forth while he ranted.

"Yea, sure whatever. Listen, I'm kind of in a really big hurry here, so if you could just-"

"**-But if you walk away now, you can tell your children that you saw clan Weyrloc before our Blood Pack conquered the stars!"** The Commander grit his teeth, as the only thing he hated more than people 'disingenuously asserting' at him, were people who cut him off. To be damned honest, they were lucky that that Mordin needed to get Mealon alive, otherwise he would've thanix'd this place as well.

Tuning out the ranting krogan, Shepard glanced at the flammable tank of fuel that sat right under his feet. _'Nice situational awareness, dumbass'_ he thought, andfor a few seconds, he kind of considered shooting it, and letting that oblivious moron burn. But to be honest that would be kind of unoriginal. Besides, the only thing slower than trying to talk to these meatheads was to try and fight them. If they could just hand the salarian over, Mordin would be happy and he could move on to the next goddamned mission.

"**You think the Urdnot impressive? They are pitiful! Werloc Gold will destroy them all! We will lay waste to their camps, and take their women for ourselves! I personally, shall mount Urdnot Wrex's head upon a pike, for all to know of the teribble death that shall befall them all, should they choose to oppose us! The Salarian will cure the Genophage, and Clan Weyrloc will spread across the galaxy, IN A SEA OF BLOOD AND FIRE, AND DEATH!"**

Holy crap, this was taking forever. Shepard hadn't heard a speech this long winded his Induction into the SPECTRES. "Okay, that's really great and all, but honestly, if you can just be reasonab-"  
><strong>"When we cure the Genophage, Weyrloc Gold will rule all krogan! The surviving races will frighten their children with tales of what we did to the turians!"<strong>

"If you could just stop for a minu-"

"**The Asari will scream, as we plunge their precious Citadel into the sun!"**

"Jus-"

"**We will keep the salarians as slaves! And eat their eggs as a delicacy..."**

Were the Clan Speaker not ranting so loud, he would have heard the very low, and very audible growl that the commander emitted. Miranda could see his quickly mounting rage was starting to cause his implants to flair, as his eyes were now glowing red. This, and the murderous look in his eyes, made the rest of his squad slowly back away from him.

With a mighty vein, of barely contained rage throbbing in his forehead, Shepard tried to reason with them again.

"Can't we trade? Hell, i'll even let you keep the research if-"

"**If you lack the wisdom to flee, then you will be the first of billions beneath our might for Weyrloc Go-"**

"_**SHUUUT UUUUUP!**_"

The clan speaker stopped speaking, and looked at the human in confusion. Obviously he was not used to people interrupting him.

"AAAAAHHHHHH!"

The Krogan, as well as everyone else were stunned into silence as Commander Shepard screamed in an angry rage, then pointed a finger at the clan speaker. "WILL YOU JUST SHUT THE HELL UP!? You assholes are the reason everybody hates the Krogans! Do you even care about curing the Genophage? Or are you just angry that nobody cares about your crappy little clan out in the middle of nowhere?! I am trying to save _**the goddamned galaxy!**_ And everybody between the Council, The Collectors, Cerberus, and _every gun toting son-of-a-bitch mercenary in the whole fucking universe, _has done nothing but stand in my way!At this point i'm half tempted to say screw the reapers, and destroy all sentient life myself!"

The speaker for Clan Weyrloc could only blink for a few seconds. He wanted to say something, but he couldn't. Were human eyes supposed to glow like that? At this point, he was kind of expecting the Commander to reveal that he was actually a time traveling cyborg, sent from the future to kill John Connor.

"_**STOP FITTING THE STEREOTYPE PERFECTLY!**_ I swear to god, that if you do not hand over Mealon right now, and make me come up there-

=PAUSE=

Unfortunately, for the purposes of human decency, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to censor most of what Commander Shepard is about to say...

_However_, for the purposes of Comedy, I shall replace all censored sections with the word *smurf*.

=UNPAUSE=

"-then I'm going reach down your throat, and _smurf _your _smurf_, and _smurf _it right out of you _and smurf_ _it all over that wall over there!" _Everyone, Krogan and Squad members alike, all gasped. Mordin's face was contorted in horror as he opened his omni-tool, and began running figures "M-Medically unsound! Would take _hours_ of surgery to perform safely!"

Poor Tali was slapping at her Omni-tool in desperation. Trying to find the mute button to the audio receptors on her environment suit. She managed to cut the sound, but it did her no good as Shepard's hand gestures were enough to fill in the blanks. The poor girl may never be the same again.

"And after I'm done with you, I'm going to grab _that guy right there_" one of the other Krogan jumped, and had the look of a deer caught in the headlights "and use the business end of his own *smurf*, and smurfing smurf it smurfed till it smurfs and then _smurf him to death with it!"_

The Krogan in question promptly burst into tears, "P-Please Mr Shepard! I'm just here because they tell me to! I dun wanna get *smurfed!" he wailed and began to hug his shotgun like a teddy bear and screwed his eyes shut. A desperate attempt to retain what little innocence he had left.

XXXx45 Heavily Censored Minutes LaterxXXX

"...and when the reapers finally come to Tuchanka, they'll find your *smurfed* corpses and they'll know the atrocities that i will inflict upon them, and they will cry synthetic tears!" Commander Shepard finally stopped screaming, and continued to breath heavily.

Everyone, and I mean _everyone_, crew members and Krogan alike, were all in various stages of shock and horror.

Most of the Bodyguards for the Clan Speaker had fled, while the few that had remained were only there because they were too busy throwing up all over the ground. The Clan Speaker was laying in the fetal position, completely catatonic, he just held himself and muttered incoherently.

A good fifteen feet away from the commander, a small green plant -which in spite of the nuclear war, the fierce radiation, and harsh Tuchankan environment- had actually withered up and died, probably to never grow again. And all of the Attack Veran which, while normally very fierce, now only stared at the ground. Their black eyes were empty, had completely lost that 'spark' as they stared at nothing.

Which was impressive, considering that they didn't even speak english...

A door nearby opened up and Mealon, along with the his research notes, files, and several experiments, were all physically ejected. The small Salarian landed on his rear end, and blinked for a moment before turning back to the door.

"What the heck are you doing? Not done synthesising cure to the Genophage yet!" Before the door shut, the Krogan that kicked him out were heard mutter things like 'not worth it' and 'things worse than genophage'.

=Advertisement=

"Hi! I'm Kelly Chambers. You may know me from such classics like, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, and various other fanfics around this site.

And I know we've had a lot of laughs here on Therapy at Muzzle Velocity, but today, I would like to talk to you about a serious issue that effects us all; Dehydration.

Thirst is no laughing matter. That's why whenever I'm doing battle with Harbinger, I always turn to Tupari Sports Drink, and all 9 of its essential vitamins and minerals, to help keep me strong so I can save the colonists!"

_Tupari: Brings back your ancestors from the grave!_

(Tupari is not responsible for any acts committed by zombies)

* * *

><p><strong>What? Kelly can't make a little scratch on the side? BTW this is only the first half of this chapter. (it was running a little longer than i wanted) I swears, i'm back at the keyboard now!<strong>

**Thank you so much, to all of those who took the time to review/fav and otherwise. You guys make me so happy everytime i come back to look at this... I promise, one more insanely boring chapter to up the pieces in place, then that's when the REAL fun begins.  
><strong>

**And as an apology for waiting for so long, i'm throwing in a little DLC (taking a page out of bioware's playbook).  
><strong>

**[Cerberus Support Pack!] Kelly Receives the Phalanx heavy pistol! (she has to find it first)  
><strong>

**New achievements:  
><strong>

**Making it Rain - Get Councilor Udina to scream the words "Political Shitstorm"  
><strong>

**28 Minutes Later - Kelly unleashes he pale horde upon the Collectors  
><strong>


	6. News Without Mercy PT2

"…Ok, and then you pull the slide back..." Ken said, as he demonstrated the process of loading a pistol to the Yeoman. Kelly followed the instructions in spite of the fact that the gun she held was uncomfortable, and a little too large for her hands. "…and release…"

*ka-chink!*

Kelly watched in amazement as the previously red LEDs switched to blue, and the weapon began to emit a light hum. Ken on the other hand, was slightly put-off by the ever growing smile that suddenly materialized on her face.

_Wow… _Kelly thought.

I mean. _WOW._

Kelly Chambers was armed… _Armed and Dangerous. _Kelly found herself mesmerized and sorely wishing that she had a mirror right now. With this weapon, it was completely undoubted that she was in fact; _bringing sexy back._

"God, is this what it feels like to be Blasto?" she asked enthusiastically. She waved the gun around, and practiced poses that she thought might make her look badass, for when she went out and took down the base; One Collector at a time.

Ken, however, was very distinctly aware of the fact that she was 'practicing' with her finger on the trigger. "O-Okay, lass… let's just get yer finger off the trigger now… that weapon is loaded." Unfortunately for him (and probably for herself), she wasn't listening. Her thoughts were what she was going to say when she finally came face to face with Harbinger. Blasto always had cool one-liners, so Kelly figured that she needed one-liners. Something… dramatic. Simple, yet delivers the message of _'I'm Kelly Chambers, and I'm one tough bitch.'_

Kelly scrunched her nose. _Something with less swearing. _"Hey guys, you know what the difference is between me and the Collectors?" She asked, and Conrad looked up while Ken paused from trying to duck from being in front of the barrel of Kelly's gun.

"I make this look goooood." She said, and struck a pose with the gun.

Conrad burst out into laughter, while Kenneth face-palmed hard enough to make an audible _slap._ Oh god, lass… that has got to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard." Conrad shook his head in agreement, "Yeah that was pretty corny."

"It is not!" she whined.

"Riiight" the Scotsman said, and began stuffing his pockets with as many Medigel packets, heat-sinks, and filled his omni converter with as much raw omnigel as he could fit. Conrad slumped against the corner and busied himself with trying to get comfortable.

Kelly put the gun into the waistband of her pants, and put on her game face. By now, she'd had some time to put a plan together. The first thing that they needed was some way to get…

"Hey… w-where you going?" she asked, when she turned to find Kenneth working off the grill to one of the Ventilation ducts.

"Lass, I have to go save the others from their pods."

"But" Kelly said, and found herself losing her confidence "but, you haven't heard the plan yet…" Kelly's statement caused the larger man to stop and balk at her like she was a loon. "The plan? Kelly, _you _have a plan?"

Okay, that kind of hurt, and Kelly tried not to be offended at the condescending way he'd said _'you'_. "This place has, like, these huge salvage yards. Lots of stuff and a lot of it still useful, we can go there to find something to use or even a way to call for help. If we keep running around the base like this, we're only going to get ourselves killed." She reasoned. Unfortunately, Ken didn't look so sure.

"Lass, you keep saying 'we', like we're going to go out there together." He said, but couldn't help but notice the way that the Yeoman clenched her jaw. "Look, I'm glad that you want to try and help everyone, but we're a little bit buggered here. No offence here, but maybe you should just bunker down and wait for the Commander to come."

Conrad finally spoke up. "Yea, he's right…" The Yeoman looked at the pretender, and realized that he was against her too. "I mean, not a single one of us know how to fight. I'm gonna do what I should have done in the first place and just let the professionals handle this." Conrad said, and began to pick at the fake N7 insignia "He'll know what to do."

Kelly stopped and looked between the two. She wanted more than anything to just sit here, where nobody would shoot at her, and just wait this whole mess out. However, that just wasn't going to work, they absolutely needed each other. For the first time since she joined this mission, her faith in the Commander was starting to falter. She was starting to get the feeling that he might not come in time to save them all. That maybe they really were on their own this time.

"No." The Yeoman said. "You can't just go running at them head on, there's too many! We have to plan this out, or else we're never going to make it out of this alive."

Kelly looked into her friend's eyes, and his face betrayed the doubts that ran through his mind. She knew them, because they were a reflection of her own. She knew what they were up against, what their odds were. Ken broke eye contact, and looked away. Kelly knew his answer before he even said it, she'd seen it in his eyes; _no faith_.

"Listen to me lass…" The maintenance man placed a hand on her shoulder "**You **have to stay here where it's safe. Just me by myself won't draw any attention; Hell, those scunners aren't gonna put that much work into killin one person."

X Several Decks Above X

Admittedly, this was a whole lot of work to kill just one person.

Working in perfect tandem, the Collectors operated like a well-oiled machine. Massive lines, originally intended for the pod feed systems, were redirected and welded into massive funnels into the walls. Together, they were probably going to be done in a matter of minutes. Harbinger scanned the surveillance videos and waited for that little piece of redheaded garbage to dare show her face. Not knowing where she was, the fact that she managed to evade detection so effectively was only fueling the reapers ire of her.

And what the hell was she anyway? She wore a Cerberus uniform, so really, the possibilities were endless. Was she some sort of commando, maybe Special Forces? Considering that she'd set fire to an entire deck _and_ covered her tracks by staging a prison riot, it was more than likely that Harbinger was dealing with an expert of guerilla warfare. Hell, for all Harbinger knew, Cerberus could be plucking these assholes right out of the N7 program.

The immortal starship pulled up one of the few video clips that it had, from when she'd been wandering around the salvage yard by herself. The video showed her poking around, looking at one of the various stripped-down wrecks when she turned around and jumped, having accidentally scared herself with her own shadow.

And for a minute, maybe two, Harbinger considered the possibility that she may just be a bumbling coward, managing to survive on pure dumb luck.

…Unless… that's what she _wanted_ them to think. To make the reaper think that she was harmless, and thus make him lower his guard.

_Clever girl…_ the reaper thought. Not that any of it mattered, as she was about to die.

Harbinger knew, to within a degree of certainty, that the redheaded scum had to be crawling around the vents somewhere. The entire facility had _miles_ of ductwork running throughout the entire facility. Sending in his slaves would take days to flush her out, weeks if she hid herself well. Sending in the seeker swarms might _seem _like a good idea, but often it was more trouble than it was worth. (He'd be pulling dead bees out of the air condition filters for _months) _Plus, the Normandy had already proven that it had countermeasures for them.

If she did, then Harbinger would just be giving her more time to… do whatever it was that she was planning.

You see, Harbinger's problem was a problem that was as old as time itself; how does one rid your home of unwanted rats? However, and very unfortunate for that piece of redheaded trash, the solution was just as old and simple as the problem itself: Poison.

For all of the problems that she'd caused, Harbinger wanted to watch her die. To see her face as she truly saw how wrong she was, defying something so much larger than herself. Unfortunately though, such luxuries could not be afforded this day.

The Prothean drone finished welding and the job was complete. Harbinger inspected the work itself, and if such a thing were possible, it would have smiled. The plan was that Harbinger was going to dump a few million gallons of the nanobot gel (what they were using to melt people) into the ventilation ducts, to kill the red headed woman.

I'm going to repeat that again, so that the sheer amount of overkill may properly sink in.

Harbinger is going to dump a few million gallons of nanobot gel, into the ventilation ducts, _to kill one person. _Admittedly, there was going to be a few repercussions that needed to be considered for such an act. The base would be fine; their Nanobot technology was very sophisticated. Already, it was calibrated to target only organic matter, none of the ducts or electrical systems would be harmed. Hell it might even run a little better because of it, sort of like pouring a little drain-o into a slow moving pipe.

No, the real problem was going to be the_ smell_. Melting a living human being inside of a ventilation system was like trying to hide a bunch of old fish inside of a wall. The entire base was probably going to smell like old pork for well over a month. The Protheans still had working nasal cavities, so Harbinger was going to have to smell this every time the reaper possessed a Collector.

God, and what if one of the other reapers came to visit? That would be an awkward explanation.

Needles inside of their respective gauges started to move, and the Drone signaled that it was ready to pump. And after a few seconds of consideration, Harbinger decided that having a base that smelled of 'aged-ass' was the least of its problems and gave the order to start.

Massive pumps thrummed to life, and within seconds, the black ichor began to flow into the vents.

xx

"Just trust me, lass, just stay put and you'll be just fine. I'll go, and save the crew." Ken said.

She turned to Conrad, hoping for some sort of support, but the man wouldn't meet her eyes. "I… I'm sorry, miss… I appreciate you saving my life and all, but… I'm just a fraud." He said, and picked at the plastic N7 logo on his breast plate. "I should have just stepped aside from the beginning."

Kelly turned back to Ken, and saw that he already climbing back up to the vent and was trying to shimmy his way in. "Ken, wait!" She cried, but only got a muffled 'just stay put' in response. Kelly, normally chipper woman that she was, actually growled at everyone's unwillingness to work together. Ken was being what Gabriella normally referred to as ' a total dumbass', and Conrad was pretty much just shutting down.

Nothing was going like she'd envisioned.

"Ken, use your head for a minute, you don't even know where you're going! I've seen the map, there's like 200 decks, you'll never find them!" She cried, and grabbed a hold of his shoe and pulled as hard as she could. She was rewarded by a loud yelp, and his whole body started sliding out of the vent.

Meanwhile, the Pretender folded his knees to his chest, and shook his head. He'd somehow managed to tune those two out, by focusing on his own self-loathing. This entire day had been one big eye opener. Almost like an epiphany, every wrong move in his life all came back and slapped him in the face. His neglected wife, the friends that eventually stopped returning his calls, and the _hundreds_ of people that had laughed at him, when they'd found out about his obsession with the commander.

He couldn't even save that one lad-

_-flop!-_

Conrad looked up at the noise. It had sounded like someone had dropped a big glob of jelly on the ground. He looked around, and even in the dim lighting he could tell that it wasn't coming from the junction room. He looked back at the two redheads, but they were too busy squabbling to have noticed anything. He listened for a moment more and then heard it again, this time louder, and in rapid succession.

-_flopflopflop FLOP!- _

Slowly, The Pretender stood and pinpointed the source of the noise: it was some kind of oily black fluid, and it was coming from the vent that Ken had nearly crawled into.

"Uh… guys." He said as he watched the odd liquid pool, and slowly began to seep into their junction. Whatever it was, it was thick, black, and moving with the consistency of molasses or maybe honey. "_Guys..._" he said again. He looked over, and saw that they were still fighting.

"Dahm it woman, I don't have time for your silly plans!" He said venomously, and made a choking motion with his hands. It was as if he was trying to rid himself of his redheaded compatriot by utilizing 'the force'. However, be it that Kelly was a Jedi Master and could resist such attacks, or that Ken had no medichloride in his blood, she only shouted right back at him. "Silly plans!? How can they be silly when yours are just plain stupid!?" she screeched, and stamped a foot in frustration "What, are you just going to go meandering around out there, and block bullets with your _stupid thick hea-_"

"GUYS!" Conrad yelled, and they both turned to him with an angry "what?"

"LOOK!" he said, and pointed to the fluid that was seeping into their little room. Though Conrad wasn't sure as to what it was, but Kelly and Ken _very much were_. They'd had front row seats when the colonists had been processed.

"Oh shite..."

"Oh god, they know we're in the vents, we gatta get out of here!" Kelly cried, and being that it was a junction they had a lot of options for which direction to take. Ken started frantically looking around when Kelly pointed to one of the covers on the other side. "That one! We gatta go in that one, It leads to one of the closest exits!" The Scotsman looked at her with a look of distrust "_Please_, Ken, I've seen the map! Its only, like, 200 meters. We've gotta move, or it's going to pool up on us!"

Ken looked back at the vent, and saw that the gel was coming down even faster now. Like a slow motion waterfall it was pouring into their little haven and starting to form a large puddle on the ground. In a matter of seconds, it would reach their feet.

"Fine! In we go!"

XxxX

Hidden below the 'tree line', of impaled husks, The Loudmouth huddled near the ground and stared at something in silent horror.

Husks of all ages, genders, and sizes hung helplessly all around her. Their looks of agony were frozen in time, clearly marking their terrible last moments as they were obviously speared while still alive and conscious. Hell, most of them weren't actually inactive.

Most of the husks with any line of site reach out to her, and moaned ghoulishly. They knew she was there; they just couldn't do anything about it… yet.

So the fact that Kalisah didn't give a single fuck made the scene a little absurd, as she stared at the _real_ source of her horror; The playback footage of her holo-recorder.

"My god…" she said, as she looked at her own ghostly visage, rendered in sickly greens and pale whites, since she was forced to use the night-shot mode. The more she stared at it, the more it looked like a bootleg version of _The Blair Witch Project_.

And not the crappy one, either, I'm talking about the _even shittier_ Turian remake. (Nothing but Turians monologuing for 5 god-damned-hours in the woods)

And it didn't help that this whole base was lit up like it was supposed to be a crappy haunted house. Low hanging fog, dead bodies everywhere, and _really shitty lighting_… It's like the owner of this place was trying to compensate for something.

"…aaaAAAGGHhhhh…" one of the husks moaned, and gnashed its teeth at her. The Loudmouth rolled her eyes, and kindly asked it to 'shut the fuck up'. Unsurprisingly, it did no such thing. It seemed that today, life was going to throw her another shit day, and all she could really do was prove that she was tough enough to take it.

And she was…

Life, for Kalisah Bint Sinan Al-Jilani, was something that she battled on a daily basis. Her show, her meager career, and shitty pay, were something that she had to fight for, tooth and nail, every day to maintain.

But ever since she was a little girl, that was just the way that it was; just reaching out, and proving that you deserved something a little more than the other guy. Waiting for the right moment often meant that she walked home empty handed, and often enough, with an empty stomach.

Her story was actually a little unoriginal when it boiled down to it. She grew up poor. She and her mother lived alone up in the 'economic' districts of the wards. Her life was hard, but so was everyone else's. She was all too familiar with the term 'duct rat', and she knew what it was to be hungry. She knew sacrifice, she knew loss, and she knew what it felt like to surrender her dignity in the hopes that she might redeem herself later.

Her childhood was spent watching the people around her fall to their own addictions. She watched so many of them get beaten down by life, and settle on surviving on the scraps that they were handed. Others lashed out, and took what they wanted by force, and others just disappeared. Suspected dead, or possibley worse.

Khalisah was one of the few people that ever dared to reach _up..._

The sound of heavy footsteps clanked on the other side of the door, and Kalisah perked her head up. It sounded like somebody was coming, and the footsteps were far too heavy to be anything human. Were they here for her?

Kalisah bent down, and picked up the shotgun she'd found while looking for her recorder. _God, this thing was old_. She thought. She'd be lucky if this gun didn't explode in her hands upon use.

The door slid open, and Kalisah dived into one of the dump sites of garbage that littered the floor. Cradling the weapon, that may or may not work, she watched as a pair of collectors stormed in. Their rifles raised, their guns must have had something like a flashlight built in, because their guns both emitted small beams of light that cut into the darkness. With careful tactics they swept the room.

Kalisah lay perfectly still and listened to their heavy footsteps.

In the one second she had to hide herself, she'd only managed to drape somebodies discarded jacket over herself. Its owner, probably dead and impaled right above her, began to writhe. _The Husks! _She thought to herself in horror. Most of the husks knew she was here. She hadn't given a shit, because they couldn't do anything more than reach out to her.

But were they capable of communication? She hadn't thought about that, and now she could hear the massive footsteps closing in. Slowly, and almost imperceptibly she'd repositioned her body. Putting her hand on the trigger, she pointed the shotgun 'up' as much as she dared and listened. She'd essentially turned herself into a living landmine. Now all she could do was just wait.

And wait she did. Waited and listened, her heart thundered in her chest as the massive footsteps came closer and closer.

Then nothing happened…

She could hear them chattering. Speaking in their odd language, they were not more than a few feet from her. She forced herself to slow her breathing, and prayed that the sound of her own heart wasn't actually as loud as it sounded in her head. Ten seconds went by, then twenty, and finally a whole minute. She knew, she counted every second out.

_Stay calm… _She'd told herself. This wasn't the first time that she'd ever been in this situation. Being a journalist meant that she sometimes had to be in places that she wasn't welcome. Stories were often were the danger was, and panicking often meant making noise, and noise would give her a _real_ reason to panic right now.

One of the Collectors shifted its weight, and accidentally brushed against her cover. It took everything in her not to pull the trigger right there.

And nothing happened...

The Loudmouth finally released a slow breath that she didn't that was holding, and she allowed herself to hope. Kalisah could wait this out. Just a little while longer, and they would move on. She could survive this…

Of course, this was when she felt a massive hand roughly grab her cover, and rip it right off of her.

And for a moment, she looked into a set of four lifeless eyes. The Collector towered above her, and she knew that it promised one thing. It promised _death._

Kalisah grit her teeth, and pulled the trigger.

XxxX

Harbinger, as an immortal intelligence that surpassed all organic limitations, was simply above such stupid emotions like glee, or petty exuberance. However, this didn't mean that the reaper couldn't be _extremely satisfied_ that its plan was working far better than it had expected.

He'd found her. They were moving through the ducts at breakneck speeds, and thus, were tripping every sensor and proximity alarm that could be tripped. The reaper was tracking them like they were wearing GPS collars on their necks.

The Protheans designed the base in such a way, that the ventilation system also doubled as their maintenance shaft. Every pathway had led to a juncture on every deck, and from there one could go to any sector they wanted, or just move to another deck. That female piece of garbage could have literally gone anywhere she wanted, and as long as she was careful, Harbinger would never have been able to detect her.

The situation had been a tactical nightmare. She essentially had exploited a flaw that Harbinger itself could never have foreseen. It was no wonder that Cerberus had selected her for this mission, her skills of infiltration were probably on par with Shepard's himself.

However, by simply flooding the junctures with the nanobot gel, the reaper was able to control the trickle-down by simply closing and opening the emergency shutters. And now, she was trapped between the Junctures. The one above her was flooded, and the one below her was rapidly filling. Her death was assured… or at least it _should be_, if she'd stop making all of the correct moves.

Harbinger watched its map and the redhead, the latter of whom was represented as a small blip, moved through a tangled mess of junctures and ducts on a massive 3d map. Just a little closer and it was going to run right into a 'flood zone'…

The blip made a hard right, into one of the lesser used vents and narrowly evaded death again.

Harbinger's eyes flashed in anger. What did she have a map in there, or something? The reaper's irritation began to reach a boiling point, and Harbinger decided that it had had enough. Nobody could possibly maneuver those ducts so expertly, unless they knew where they were going. And in a moment, they were actually going to reach an exit and escape.

_Not acceptable._

Fine, if she wouldn't sit still long enough to die, then maybe he could _help_ in that department. If the Nanobot Gel wasn't enough for her, then let's see how she dealt with that _and_ the seeker swarms. Now that Harbinger knew where she was, it'd be able to direct them through the vents. And if she actually makes it to the exit, then they'd follow her right out. Air conditioning filters be damned.

It was going to be a waste though, like, 7 out of 10 of them were going to get themselves caught in the Gel, but it didn't care. Commander Shepard was coming and Harbinger did _not_ have time to be chasing rats.

xXXx

Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani fought like her life depended on it.

The Collector ripped off her hiding spot only to catch a shotgun blast to the gut. It folded over, and Khalisah shot it again for good measure. Nailing it in the chest, near its shoulder, it spun and finally fell to the ground.

_One down, and one to go. _

Fear, adrenaline, and the will to live, mixed into an odd cocktail that fueled her desperation. She was on her feet faster than she'd ever thought she was capable, and brought her shotgun to bear. The second Collector didn't seemed phased that its partner had just gone down, and made a beeline for her. The Loudmouth aimed for its head and pulled the trigger.

*click!*

Nothing happened, and her shotgun began to angrily beep at her.

If she'd had the time, she would have laughed at her own shit luck. The intercooling system was malfunctioning, and with a non-removable heat sink it would be hours before it could be used again. Not that any of it mattered, because at that second, the weapon was ripped from her hands by an arm that was far stronger than anything she could ever imagine.

The massive insect casually tossed the gun away. Khalisah didn't even see where it landed, all she knew was that it clattered somewhere off in the forest of dragon's teeth. For all the good it would do her now, he might has well jettisoned it right out of an airlock.

Now disarmed, the Collector moved to grab her, but to its complete surprise The Loudmouth took a step _toward_ it.

After getting punched, kicked, and slapped as many times as Khalisah does during interviews, she'd learned the value of taking self-defense classes on the citadel. Nothing too fancy, just the basics on Krav Maga. Originally, she'd been saving it for the day that she'd ever have a third interview with the dickhead supreme; Shepard. Obviously though, this was also a good time as she channeled all of the knowledge, she pulled grabbed the creature by its arm and pulled it forward. Using its own momentum against it, she turned and took a low stance and managed a flip it right over her shoulder where it landed with an extremely satisfying 'thud'.

From the ground, the massive insectoid merely gave her a curious glance.

Khalisah couldn't help but smile at her own success. _I can't believe that actually worked!_ She thought, and tried to make a run for it when a massive hand clamped down on her arm, causing her to cry out in pain. The Loudmouth could only moan in agony as the collector got back to its feet, its grip on her arm so tight she briefly thought that it might break right there.

Suddenly, it swung her around, nearly ripping her arm right out of her socket, it threw her.

And when I say threw, I mean it _rag dolled _her sorry ass across the room.

Khalisah's entire world switched between the floor, the ceiling, the floor again and finally settled on the ceiling. The air was blasted out of her lungs when she landed and pain lanced up her back. The headache that followed was absolutely crippling, rendering her unable to even string a thought together. The giant stalked forward and grabbed her again, this time by the front of her dress.

Unable to put up much resistance, Khalisah groaned until her mind caught up, and she realized that she was being dragged across the floor. Oddly, her first thought was that this was 1000 credit, Asari spun, pure silk dress. It was the only nice dress that she'd owned, the one she used for her show.

Her vanity instantly died however, when she found the strength to crane her neck and look where she was being dragged to.

"N-No!" she stammered, and terror gripped at her very soul. She began to fight again with everything that her body could muster.

The Collector was dragging her towards the dragon's teeth. One in particular was empty and unlit, its long pole was down, neatly collapsed in on itself, and Kalisah knew exactly what was going to happen to her.

The Loudmouth kicked, screamed, and scratched at her captor like a desperate animal. She'd even managed to sink her teeth into its arm, and it was completely unfazed. The fucking thing was unstoppable; it was like trying to fight off a damned terminator.

Just as Khalisah was about to try and wriggle her way out of her dress, she was lifted again and placed on top of her own grave.

Even at the end, she still fought with desperate fury as the collector held her down with one hand, and began to fiddle with the controls located at the base with the other.

X

"Kelly, where do we go!?" Ken asked desperately as they all came to a stop in front of a 4-way crossroad. With barely enough room to crawl, they all were lined up, single file, with Ken in the back, Conrad in the middle and Kelly leading in the front. Kelly's mind flashed the map in front of her eyes, along with the rest of her life, as she tried to discern a route that would lead her to the nearest exit.

"Hold on. Let me think!"

Kelly did not work well under pressure, and right now she was basically trying to solve a three dimensional maze off of memory alone, while trying to keep everyone ahead of the slow moving wave of Gel that was in hot pursuit. Ken dared to look back, and saw that they'd only had maybe a 15, maybe 20 foot lead from being melted. Their only saving grace was that it was so thick that they were able to outrun it, so long as they kept moving.

Which they currently were not.

"Lass, now would be a good time!"

"For god sakes, man, let the woman think!" Conrad cried. Ken thought about saying something nasty back to him, but decided against it, if it meant that Kelly would hurry. Hell, at this point he'd sacrifice his left nut if it would help. Ken looked back again, and the black ichor was a little over 10 feet away now. "Oh geez." He breathed, and screwed his eyes shut. _Don't look at it, don't look at it, don't look at it, _He thought. Repeating it in his head like a mantra, he decided that he was absolutely not going to look back again.

Suddenly, he could hear something else now. It was coming from directly behind them, and it sounded like… buzzing.

Furious buzzing… Furious, angry buzzing that could only mean one thing.

Slowly, Ken's neck almost creaked as he broke his vow and turned to look back.

Coming around the last corner they'd turned, hundreds of swarmer's flooded into the duct behind them, and by the sound of it, possibly _thousands_ behind them. Their progress was a little slower that what it normally should have been. With essentially no room to maneuver, most of them were bumping into each other and knocking themselves out of the air. Those that fell were immediately dissolved in the Gel below them, as if a reminder that it was not to be ignored. Only the slower more careful swarmer's were making any real progress towards them.

But even at their cautious speed, they were closing the gap _really fucking fast_.

"K-Kelly, I dun wanna rush you or anything, but I kinda got AN ASSLOAD OF BEES BEHIND ME NOW!"

"What!?" Kelly said, and looked back herself. "Oh crap on a cracker!" Kelly swore and screwed her eyes shut. Forcing her mental gift into overdrive, she'd grit her teeth and traced an imaginary line through her invisible maze.

And finally, after what felt like an eternity (doubly for ken) her eyes shot back open "RIGHT! We're heading right!" she cried and darted in that direction.

She almost cried tears of relief when she saw what her mental map had promised: the exit!

With renewed vigor, she crawled as fast as her hands and knees would carry her, and in seconds, Kelly came up to their last obstacle; the ventilation grate. "Okay, just gimme a sec, and I'll have this right off-GAAA!" she screamed as Conrad collided into her, shoving her face into the cover. The Yeoman struggled to push him back, but the pressure suddenly doubled as Ken added to the pile up and pushed with all of his might "Sorry, lass, no time!"

The thin metal cover, and Kelly, both groaned and protested under the pressure, and finally the plate snapped off with a loud *PING* as both it and the poor girl were physically ejected.

"WAAAHH!" Kelly screamed as she fell 4 feet from the wall, and face planted right on the ground with the force of a squishy asteroid. Unfortunately, her sudden misfortune wasn't quite over as Conrad quickly followed and landed right on top of her. Had anybody cared to comment, they would have said that Kelly made a sound that resembled a squeaker toy meeting its end in a garbage compactor.

The Pretender shook his head and gathered his bearings, when he heard a muffled and very pathetic voice float up to him. "Just kill me already…" The Pretender rolled off of the much pancaked Yeoman, "Sorry, ma'am!" he apologized.

Ken was the last to follow, however though, The Maintenance Man had made a career of climbing out of these things, so he'd had the foresight of rolling on to his back and gracefully pulling himself out. "Conrad!" he said as soon as he was on his feet. "Help me find the cover, we gatta put it back on before the swarmer's get out!"

Perfectly content on letting those two handle the problem, Kelly just lay there and rested. She didn't even care that she felt like road kill, or that Conrad probably owed her breakfast from where his face had been in the vent, her brain needed rest. Pushing her mental gift like that had left her with a head full of mush. "owwww…" she whined "I wish the ground was all mushy and soft…" she complained, face down.

Realizing that nobody was listening, she slowly began to peel herself off of the ground, and paused when she thought that she'd heard something else. Kelly honed in on what sounded like a struggle, and blinked at what she saw. It looked like a collector was holding down a woman on one of the dragons' teeth. Gears whirred in her head, and you could almost _hear_ the proverbial hamster jump back on its wheel and start running. 2 and 2 finally came together, and it Kelly's eyes went wide. _Holy crap! A Collector was holding down a woman on one of the dragons' teeth!_

"Guys? Guys! That lady's being attacked! We gatta do something!" She said, and urgently pointed at the assailant. Conrad, who was holding the dented plate in place while Ken tried desperately to reshape it back on its seals, looked down at her. "This isn't really a good moment, ma'am!"

Kelly looked up, and she saw_ that it really wasn't._ The two were only barely holding the vent on, while hundreds of tiny little insect legs wriggled and writhed through the grating. This was accompanied by the occasional stinger as they tried in vain to reach them. Ken was trying to maintain his grip with one hand, and was using his omni-gel dispenser to 'glue' the entire setup right back on the hole.

"w-What do I do!?"

"You've got a bloody gun, lass, _you shoot him!_"

"Oh, right!" she said, and pulled out the M3 pistol that'd been jammed down the waistband of her pants. Having been given a crash course on operating the weapon, Kelly firmly placed her hand on the touch sensors on the handle. The gun gave a light hum, and readily unfolded in her hand. She pulled back the slide, and heard the oddly satisfying 'cer-chink' of the weapon priming itself.

_Oh god, this is it. _She thought, and the red LED's switched to blue. _Its time go all Blasto the first Hanar specter, on these mofos!_

"Hey, Jerk!" Kelly dramatically shouted and stepped out to get a clear shot. Tongue in her teeth, she had the look of furious concentration found usually on children trying to color between the lines. The massive, insect like creature, only had time to whip its head around and give the Yeoman a look of surprise "Enkindle This!"

And with an absolute disregard for gun safety, control, or the fact that her target was _right on top_ of the woman she was trying to save, Kelly began firing as fast as she could pull the trigger.

There's an old adage that said; the most dangerous guns in the world were the ones in the hands of the untrained. And god help us, it was _painfully obvious_ that our hero was amongst them.

To Kelly, each muzzle flash was almost like a flash grenade, disorientating, blinding, and deafening, all at the same time. Her first two rounds went low, striking the ground almost 3 feet in front of her enemy. Kelly's third shot was far to the right, striking an innocent terminal that'd committed no crime, save being built in an unfortunate spot; it exploded in a shower of sparks and smoke.

A combination of recoil, and poor impulse-control made her next two shots by far the worst. Her fourth went high and wild, soaring an easy 15 feet above its head. By this time, the Yeoman had lost her balance from the weapon kicking so hard in her hands; she was already toppling over by the time the fifth shot went off. This one flew at an almost 90 degree angle, and not only missed her target, but also the _walls_ as the round imbedded itself into the ceiling.

The sixth and final shot came when the gun fell out of the Yeoman's hands, and went off when it clattered against the ground. The barrel pointing backwards, the final shot missed Kelly's head by a scant few inches, and drove itself into the wall behind her. Ken yelped at the new scorch mark that was now only a foot away from the scotsman's own head. "Holy shite!"

As quick as it had all started, it was over. Kelly opened her eyes, having had them squeezed shut, she wondered how awesomely heroic she looked right now.

"Woooow…" The woman said, no longer being held down by the distracted Collector, she was able to sit up and peek her head around her captor. She and everyone else were staring at the randomly placed scorch marks that littered the deck with utter amazement. "Holy shit, lady, _you suck at this…_" the loudmouth said.

"What the hell was that!?" Ken asked, looking up at the pockmark next to his head. "What are you, an imperial Stormtrooper? How did you miss that many times?"

"I-I've never fired a gun before!" she cried, and Conrad couldn't help but shake his head "And did you say 'Enkindle this'? Kelly, that is a _terrible_ one liner. Blasto movies get terrible ratings for a reason..."

Everyone paused, when they all heard an odd grunting sound across from them. They looked over, and saw that the Collector drone trying to get their attention.

Without a mouth, it was unable to speak, but it continued to grunt and pointed at its own weapon. It then started demonstrating proper firing stances, and small wordless tips on how to control recoil. The Yeoman buried her face in shame, as she realized that her marksmanship was so epically bad that it was actually garnering sympathy from the very people trying to kill her.

The Drone had to cut its lesson short, as it realized that it'd forgotten about the woman it was trying to impale. It turned back to the spike, only to see that she was gone. The Collector only stood there for a second and let out a single chitter; which roughly translated to '...fuck.'

Suddenly, there was a tap on its shoulder, and it turned again to find that Khalisah had snuck around behind it. The dark skinned woman gave what could have been an award winning smile, and a friendly wave. "How would you like to be part of tonight's headline?" she asked.

Before the drone had time for any sort of response, she slugged it in the face with a surprisingly vicious right hook, considering her small frame.

By now, pretty much everyone's figured out that trying hurt a collector's chitin armor, with anything less than a bullet, was pretty much a lesson in futility. However, what it _did_ do was catch it entirely off guard. Giving Khalisah the precious second she needed, she dropped low and drove her shoulder into its gut, sending the creature reeling backwards. It tripped on the base of the spike, and fell right on top of the small platform.

"Tonight at 9…" The Loudmouth looked down at the small panel of keys, located at the base, and saw that they were all marked in Prothean. She gave a brief 'fuck it' and delivered a swift kick, effectively pushing all of them at once. The entire setup gave a soft beep, and a massive spike shot straight up and right through the Prothean's chest. The Collector screeched in pain as it was lifted 15 feet into the air. "...Action news reporter, Khalisah al-Jilani _kicks ass._"

Khalisah looked up at the writhing insect, and gave a victorious sneer. She'd kind of thought about inserting some sort of bug pun, but settled for flipping it off. She'd been a little too close to death, so she needed a minute for the shock of it all to wear off.

She'd just stood there for a minute and just breathed, when she heard footsteps approach her. She turned, and regarded the small redheaded woman that approached her. "Are you alright, miss?" the redhead asked.

"Yea… yea, I'll live, thanks." She breathed, and reached out to Kelly. "Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani, Wusterland News."

"Kelly Chambers. Yeoman of the Normandy." She smiled, and reached out to shake her hand. To her surprise, however, The Loudmouth reached right passed it and plucked Kelly's gun right out of her other hand "Hey!"

"You don't get to have this anymore." She said, and noticed the other two shuffling up to them.

"We did it!" The Scotsman said, "We sealed the vent back up, and if that bugger" he gestured up at the still writhing Collector "is dead, then I think we're safe for the moment." Conrad came shambling in after, and gave the woman a small smile that she couldn't help but return. _Stupid bastard managed to survive. _was all she could think.

"Holy fuck, I'd thought you would have gotten your dumbass killed by now." She said. Conrad shook his head "Nope… I'm still kicking… though I'm not really sure that a good thing in this place. By the way" He said, as an afterthought "that was pretty cool with what you said when you killed that drone. It was like watching an action vid!"

"Aye. I hate your show, and i think you're a total bitch, but you could teach this one a thing or two about one-lining." Ken said, and jerked a thumb at Kelly. The Yeoman crossed her arms, and huffed with a sour look on her face "wasn't _that_ cool…" she muttered.

Conrad groaned and tried to flex his back. The poor man, in addition to moving around in fake, though surprisingly heavy armor, was also carrying an added 40lbs of weapons on his back and hips.

He and Ken, were still holding their weapons, but Conrad was the only one who had any magnetic holsters attached to him. They didn't want to leave any guns behind, so in their blind panic, they'd strapped as many guns as they could to him before making their escape from the vents. He was basically their walking armory, which sucked because these guns were all heavy as hell. "Would you like a gun? You'd be helping both of us out." He said, and turned around.

Khalisah looked at the selection, and noted how nice his butt looked in armor. After a few seconds, she selected the shotgun. Unlike its unfortunate predecessor, this one was new and clean. She was confident that it would work much better.

"So, is there a plan?" She asked Conrad. She didn't know that he wasn't a soldier, so she assumed that he was in charge. To her surprise, however, it was Ken that spoke up.

"Aye, we got guns now, so we're gonna go shoot our way to the rest of our crew and blow this place."

Kelly groaned, and pinched the bridge of her nose. _This again…_ She appreciated his enthusiasm to save everyone, but Ken was letting the thought of Gabby in danger give him tunnel vision.

"Ken, we can't go for the crew yet," Ken scowled at our hero "Harbinger knows we're out here, we're not going to be able to catch them by surprise anymore. We need to call for help, or at least find something that will give us the upper hand… even then, we still need a proper plan, because they're not gonna just sit there and let us free everyone."

"God dahm it, woman, I'm getting real tired of debating this with ya. Every minute we dillydally, someone could die!"

"You think I don't know that!?" Kelly heatedly said. "I want to save them Ken, I do, _so badly_, but if we go out there and get ourselves killed, then _they all _die."

Conrad sheepishly put his hand up and added his own two cents "…well, I still vote that we wait for Commander Shepard to come."

"No… One of the Commander's biggest fears, is failing this mission because of a distracted crew. I think he's going to go tie up loose ends before coming. It's probably why we haven't seen him yet."

"Huh…" Khalisah said, "I'm glad to see that we're all bonding through this experience. I can only predict that this will end well."

"Nobody asked you!" Ken snapping at her."You can't even get through a single interview with Shepard without a concussion, let alone come up with a better plan."

"REALLY!?" she screeched at him, suddenly frothing with fury "In the middle of this fucking hell hole, you're going to bring _that_ up!?" Conrad stepped in front of her, and tried to calm her down. "I-It's oka-"

"No! Either he takes that back, or I'm going to go over there and make haggis out of his face!"

"Bring it on, ya harpy!"

"Get the hell out of my way!" Kalisah said, and started shoving Conrad aside "I need to go over there, and beam my fist into Scotties face!"

_**ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL**_

Everyone stopped squabbling when there was a sudden burst of heat and raw power. The Biotic field was so intense, that it actually made their teeth tingle as Harbinger possessed the impaled Collector.

Strung up in the air, like it was, its glowing body bathed the immediate area in a soft orange light, making the forest of dragon's teeth look more hellish than it already did in the dark.

_**YOU HAVE BECOME AN ANNOYANCE. **_

Harbinger must have known that it couldn't do anything. It didn't struggle against the spike, and since it was impaled facing up; it had no line of sight to fling biotic attacks. The most it could do was crane its head around and try to look at them.

_**YOU FUMBLE IN DEFY SOMETHING THAT YOU CANNOT BEGIN TO COMPREHEND. YOU DO NOT KNOW THE FUTILITY OF YOUR ACTIONS.**_

Ken shook his head at the Reaper terminal. "Ha! Look who's talkin about be'n all futile and shite! You can't even see th-" there was a sound, almost like thunder, as the reaper's body flared brightly for a second. Nobody was positive, but it almost seemed like it was a flash of anger.

_**SILENCE.**_

There was a moment, and things finally settle back.

_**YOU ARE INSIGNIFICANT. YOUR LIFE MEANS NOTHING COMPARED TO THE DESTRUCTION THAT WILL BE WROUGHT BY US. I WILL GRANT YOU ONE CHANCE TO PROLONG THE INEVITABLE. ONE DEAL.**_

Ken blinked up at the monster, his face betraying his distrust. "A deal? Wh-"

_**SILENCE. I ONLY OFFER THIS DEAL TO THE REDHEADED SCUM THAT CONTINUES TO DEFY ME.**_

"But…" Ken blink, there were only two redheads in this group, and he was one of them "but, if you're not talking to me, then who…" Ken paused, and realization slowly dawned on him. "Kelly?" he asked, and jerked a thumb at the woman who was currently hunkered down, and hiding behind Conrad's legs. "Kelly _Chambers_?" he asked with disbelief.

"_Don't tell him my name!" _she whispered harshly, and swatted his leg.

_**KELLY… CHAMBERS… **_Harbinger said slowly, like it was testing how it would sound.

_Oh god, I'm on a first name basis with a reaper! My life is going to suck from now on! _She thought, as she gulped and gathered her courage. Kelly was outright terrified, but… a chance to prolong her life? The young woman slowly came out, and addressed the ageless being. "A… deal?" she asked, and cursed herself for sounding so cowardly.

_**YES.**_

The last thing in the world that Kelly wanted was to make some dubious deal with the devil. But… then again, what could Harbinger possibly want from her? She didn't own anything of any real value. She doubted that she knew anything, that couldn't be answered with a ten minute search on a web browser.

Maybe it was looking for intel on Cerberus? She hoped not, she was so low on the totem pole, that she'd be lucky if anybody would tell her where the bathroom was if she asked.

"w-what do you want?"

_**LEAVE.**_

Kelly had to stop, and replay what it'd said in her head a few times. "…leave? Like…, leave the base?"

_**YES. YOU WILL BE GRANTED SAFE PASSAGE THROUGH THE RELAY.**_

Khalisah, who'd been recording the entire ordeal, put down her holo-recorder and scoffed at this. "Yea, okay, and I bet we get a free bottle of snake oil as a consolation priz…" She stopped when Kelly put a hand up to silence her, then turned back to the Reaper.

"If… if I do this… You'll let rest of my friends go to?"

_**YES. THEY WILL BE ALLOWED TO LEAVE.**_

"Why? Why are you offering this?"

_**YOU ARE NOTHING. YOUR EXISTENCE IS IRRELEVANT IN WHAT IS COMING. YOU ARE NOT WORTH CHASING AROUND THIS STATION. LEAVE.**_

Kelly couldn't help but smile at this. It was… a little bit if an honor to considered a pain in the ass, to an actual Reaper "…And the other crewmembers, do they get to go to?"

_**NO. THEY BELONG TO ME.**_

And there it was; the catch. What Harbinger was asking, would pretty much defeat the entire purpose of her staying. Her first instinct was to refuse outright… but…

Was she really just kidding herself, here? She really had to be honest; this mission was going_ pretty freaking bad_ so far. They were only barely surviving on pure dumb luck, there was a very real possibility that they were going to walk through the next door, and right into a firing squad… or worse. Seeing all of these impaled husks was a sobering reminder that _there really were_ worse ways to die on this station.

Maybe she should just cut her losses. She'd saved three people, that was enough, right?

Right?

She turned to the others and looked into their eyes. "What do you guys think? Should we take the deal?"

"No, lass" Ken was the first to speak up "there's no way I'm leaving without Gab… the rest of the crew." The Yeoman turned to Khalisah, and she shook her head. "Do what you want, kid, but I'm not going anywhere. This is a once in a lifetime thing." She said, and tapped her recorder "I've gatta be where the story's at."

And finally, she turned to Conrad. The man was had his head down, and was staring at his feet. She immediately expected him to be the voice of dissidence. "Do you want to leave?" she asked gently.

What she saw next surprised her. The Pretender looked up at her with a face that was… hardened. Kelly smiled, and she knew that it was a look of resolved determination. Kelly probably had the same look in the shuttle, when she'd decided to make a stand. "No." he said "I'm a coward, and a fraud… but I'm not a monster. If I didn't help, when I actually had the chance to do something, then I… I wouldn't be able to live with myself."

At that moment, Harbinger flared, and the sound of thunder rumbled throughout the room again.

_**THEIR OPINIONS ARE IRRELEVANT. THIS CHOICE IS YOURS TO MAKE. **_

Kelly ran a hand though her hair and tried to be brave. This really was her choice, and one that was obvious. This wasn't some Blasto movie… the smart thing to do was to take the deal, get up, and leave this terrible place...

But then she thought to herself;_ What if this __**was**__ a Blasto movie?_

(((Renegade Action)))

"Look. Screw you. Screw the ship you flew us in on. Screw those husks. Screw that fliud that melts everyone. Screw your loud-ass stupid sounding voice. Screw them cheap biotic attacks you do. Screw those stupid four eyes. Screw the way you announce yourself. Screw the Collectors. Screw Saren. Screw Sovereign.

Screw the Reapers.

This is Citadel Space. My councilor is black, and my commander is Shepard. Now get the heck out of my face, and if I see you again out there, I'm slapping the crap out of you."

The moment of sheer silence that followed, was matched only by the blown away looks on Kelly's squad. It didn't last long, however, as Harbinger's body began to flare with bright energy. It's ire of the small woman manifesting into an orange corona of biotic hate that made it hard to stare directly at.

_**SO BE IT. **_It thundered, and the body went dark. It left behind nothing more than a burnt out corpse. Now that harbinger wasn't watching, Kelly buried her face into her hands.

"Oh my god, I'm going to regret that…" Kelly said. A simple 'NO' would have sufficed for the situation, but the Yeoman had all but issued a challenge, _to a Reaper,_ to come out and whoop her ass. Khalisah came up behind our very screwed hero, and patted a hand on her shoulder. "Yea, you probably are going to regret that, sweetie. But if it's any consolation, I got the whole thing on cam and the whether or not you survive, this is going right on Youtube."

"Ha ha ha!" was all Kelly heard, before she was suddenly scooped off of the ground and twirled in a large hug. Kelly couldn't help giggle as Ken spun her around, and finally plopped her back on the ground. His approval was completely evident, and he gave her a bright grin "Shite, lass, I would have just mooned my ass at that scunner, but that was _way_ more awesome!"

Meanwhile, Conrad was looking out at the forest of dragons' teeth around him. "Uh… guys…"

"Thanks… I just hope I didn't make him too mad…" she said with a worried look, and Ken blinked back at her "Too mad? Lass, you just up and gave that asshole the greatest sodding i've ever seen. Oh, I wish the commander could have seen this, he'd be would have been so proud!"

"G-Guys?" Conrad tried again, only to be ignored.

"So, you said something about a plan?" Khalisah asked, and shifted her new gun so it was a little more comfortable in her hands. "This room's fucking huge, but there's a door somewhere in that general direction.," she said and pointed "and I think we definitely need to get out of here-"

"Guys!?" everyone finally stopped, and looked over at Conrad. Kelly made a mental note to try and be more attentive when he was trying to get their attention. She honestly couldn't help it, the man was just so… ignorable. Maybe she could help him become a little more assertive?

She was about to ask what he wanted, when she noticed that he was pointing at one of the dragon's teeth. She looked to where he was pointing, and suddenly her gut lurched.

"…oh, crackers…" she swore.

Every one of the spikes had a few LEDs that were constantly on. Most would have assumed that it was merely to indicate that it was powered, and on. However, now there were a whole lot more of them on, along with a bunch of Prothean words that scrolled along a little screen. The Yeoman stared at it for a second more, when the screen flashed one last unintelligible word, it gave a soft beep, and began to lower its husk…

And it wasn't just that one, either. It was also the dozens that they were standing next to, the hundreds that they could barely make out in the darkness, and the _thousands_ that they couldn't see. They had maybe seconds before they'd be up to their eyeballs in husks.

"Huh…."The loudmouth said, effectively voicing all of their thoughts as she bent over, and made a small tear at the bottom of her dress. Thousand Credits be damned, she tore a long slit on the side that ran all the way to her upper right thigh, much more favoring the freedom which her legs were going to very much need in a second.

Ken was the last to catch on, as movement caught his attention from... well, _everywhere_, and situational awareness slowly dawned on the Scotsman. The Maintenance Man numbly turned his head back to Kelly, and he jerked a thumb at the husks that were now beginning to stand up. "…Fucking, really?" he asked, and Kelly could only shrug. "I ain't even mad anymore." She said. Off in the distance, she could see their eyes as they finally began shambling off of their prisons.

"Uh…" Conrad said, and the air was suddenly filled with a low moan that seemed to spread across the air. There was just _so many of them, _that the sound seemed to penetrate his very soul. "W-We gotta plan?" he asked shakily.

Kelly turned to her compatriots "…Scream and run?" she asked, and they all agreed.

"…sounds good."

"Yea, why not?"

"I could use a good scream and run."

Kelly nodded. "Well… let's get to it, then… AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" she, and the rest of her party started to scream as they all made a mad dash for the exit. In spite of the danger, she couldn't help but think that whatever the hell the Commander was doing, it could not be anywhere _near_ as bad as this.

But you'd be surprised at how wrong she was. For the Shepard as currently dealing with the one thing that was worse than a room full of husks...

Commander Shepard was dealing with _politicians._

Xx Meanwhile xX

"…Ah yes, Reapers" Councilor Valern said, while using his three fingers to make air quotes "the immortal race of sentient starships, allegedly waiting in dark space… we have dismissed those claims."

Commander Shepard just stood there, and ground his teeth. His implants glowing as all of his hard work, all of the evidence, and even the fact that a reaper had dropped right on their laps and said 'hello' was swept aside by the Turian Councilor. "Councilor… I swear to god, if you ever make 'air quotes' at me again, I wil-" The commander stopped when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked over, and saw that Anderson was shaking his head "Try not to take it personally, Shepard. He literally does that for anything that he doesn't want to talk about."

"Really?"

"Yup. Hell, it was his catchphrase while running for office."

"…You're kidding me, right?"

Anderson smiled at the look of disbelief on his old friend. "Don't believe me? Watch." He said and turned back to Valern "So, Councilor, I've noticed an odd expenditure on our annual budget. Did you charge 1300 credits on Candi?" The Turian instantly stiffened (in possibly more ways than one).

"Candy?' they commander asked.

"Spelled with an 'I'" He explained, and Shepard nodded with understanding.

"Ah yes, Candi" Councilor Valern said, using his three fingers to make air quotes "The Yoga master Asari stripper, allegedly working in the wards… we have dismissed those claims."

"Huh…" was all Shepard could say.

xXXx

Meanwhile, in Satan's marathon, Kelly's lungs burned, her legs ached, and in spite of the fact that she hadn't eaten in almost a day and a half, she was keeping ahead of the mob of moaning husks. The Yeoman was a woman who preached to her patients that a healthy body would lead to a healthy outlook on life. It was advice that led her to spend an hour on a treadmill, 3 times a week, in the Normandy's exercise room.

And right now, she was thanking every second of it.

One of the husks off to the side made a dive for her, and she'd barely managed to jump in time to avoid it. She landed a little awkwardly, but managed to not fall.

Ken was the lead of their little race-o-death, but only by a small margin. His longer legs gave him an advantage longer strides, along with the PT requirements of the Alliance Military.

Conrad and Khalisah were a very different story, however. Conrad's problem was 3-fold, one of them being the bulky armor that he was wearing. Like actual armor, it was hard to move in. Fixed knee joints, and stiff body plating made him run with the grace of a LOKI mech.

His second problem was that he was carrying an additional 30-ish pounds of weapons strapped to his back. He would have gotten rid of them, but he couldn't afford to put down the gun he was holding, and his other arm was currently occupied with his third problem.

Khalisah.

It was becoming severely evident that the Loudmouth was a smoker. She puffed, wheezed, and hacked as she ran. The husks probably would have caught her by now, if it wasn't for Conrad helping her keep pace. Their only saving grace was that even though she looked like she might pass out at any second, she was still able to operate, and aim her shotgun with great success.

She occasionally had to turn and run backwards for a second, to blast the occasional husk that got too close.

And finally, after god only knows how far they ran, they could see the door. And, just because they didn't have enough problems to deal with, they had to open it, defend it, and close it before a tidal wave of husks came pouring through to the other side. The last part was important, because if they got through then Kelly and her companions would be too tired to fight them off, or run any further.

And that was only IF Harbinger didn't have a firing squad on the other side.

Without being able to spare the oxygen, Kelly couldn't actually tell Ken the plan, so she had to hope that he would pick up and roll with it. Step 1 was going to be the hardest for her.

About 100 feet from the door, a single thought ran through her head: _Use the boost to get through!_

Using energy that she really couldn't spare, she entered a dead sprint, and made a charge for green button (which thankfully meant that it was unlocked). Surrendering her sense of pacing, she quickly passed her fellow Cerberus crewmember, and all but dived for the goal.

To her credit, she made it, but holy shit it was close. Her vision was greying around the edges when she, for all intents and purposes, _fell_ on the button on the center of the door. The small woman collapsed, the door opening in front of her, she actually felt the breeze that Ken made when he jumped over her. On the other side, he turned and raised his rifle.

Were Kelly a little more coherent, she would have smiled that Ken did exactly what she was hoping he'd do.

She literally did not have the energy to stand, and crawled to the access panel on the other side of the door. Ken's rifle barked as he shot off the husks that threatened to get through. Kelly had sort of a rough idea at how fast these doors would close, so if she timed it right, then she'd be able to have the door close with not a second to spare.

The final two came limping as fast as they could, and when they were about a stone's throw away, she hit the switch.

Conrad watched the doors begin to close, and put everything he had into a final push, all but dragging the woman in his arm, he could taste the end.

And of course, that's when it went to shit.

Conrad didn't even see the husk, he just saw a blue hand and the world flashed white. The next thing he knew, he was on the ground and he was looking up at the doors closing. He looked over, and saw that the woman had at least fallen on the correct side. The husk was about to strike him again, when it ate a three round burst to the chest, from Ken's rifle.

Khalisah and Conrad made eye contact, and a single thought ran through his head. _Oh my god, it's happening again! _

The two crawled to each other, and reached…

…and they made it!

The Loudmouth managed to get a firm hold on his hand, and pulled with everything she was worth; making a noise that oddly resembled an angry cat. It was also the first time that the Pretender thanked his moderately useless armor. The plastic offered little resistance on the hard ground, and thus allowed him to slide quite readily through the threshold.

The door closed, and the last thing they heard was a heavy 'fwump' as Kelly launched an incendiary attack right into the access panel.

The door lost power, which meant that _nobody_ was going to open it until they'd made the proper repairs.

_Finally _safe, Ken lowered his rifle and allowed himself to flop onto his back. The four of them just lay there, catching their breaths.

For well over five minutes, they just lay there and stared up at the ceiling. They were exhausted, sticky with sweat, hungry, and they all probably smelled terrible. But none of that mattered, because they were _alive_.

**[[ Achievement Unlocked – The Loudmouth ]]**

With the loudmouth, Kelly now has access to a digital holo-recorder. With this, Kelly can now use the emitter to broadcast a temporary holographic decoy, and draw enemy fire away from her. Khalisah's years as a reporter has given a lot of experience working with communication equipment, and dealing with ECM jamming from authorities who do not welcome her. So this also unlocks the mission to acquire tactical gear, such as personal radios and signal jammers.

(((Choice)))

_**Warning: 1 mission remaining before part two. 2 Choices Available**_

Recruit the Custodian

Acquire the M-34 _**[Author Selected]**_

Acquire Level 2 Assault weapons

Acquire Tactical Gear

_**Choices remaining: 1**_


	7. One Way In

_Hidden in the outer edges of the Collector's massive salvage yard, they had lain in wait for what felt like nearly an hour. Kelly, and the rest of her squad, had watched a few small Collector patrols move along large piles of scraps and various stripped down spacecraft. Most were on foot, while others moved on what looked like bigger versions of the hover pads used transport the colonialists._

_Through the dim lighting that this station seemed to favor, their dissection and salvaging operations hadn't slackened in the slightest. If they were concerned that the redhead, along with the rest of her friends, was going to make an attempt to infiltrate, then they didn't show it. _

_All four of our heroes were spread out in four very different positions that offered commanding views of the battlefield, while being able to stay in good cover and concealment. The Collectors were either oblivious, or just plain dumb… more than likely, they never expected anybody to ever try and assault this area. Kelly looked out over the main path, and she knew that the plan was pretty strait forward. They were going to have to move fast, and hit hard. Take them out before they had any chance to call in any reinforcements._

_Almost second nature to her, Kelly checked her weapon and was satisfied that it was charged and ready. "This is Red Phoenix to all units, prepare to engage enemy on my mark." She said into her omnitool. The Yeoman raised her weapon, and sighted the nearest of the Collectors. The rest of her squad squawked in, and Kelly gave the order "Operation is go. Take! take! take!" _

_Streams of automatic weapons fire lanced out from the darkness, and began to strafe along the exposed Protheans. They were rewarded by seeing them drop dead, and while some made it into cover, others stayed and tried to lay down suppressing fire. However, without knowing where they were, they only became favorable targets and were brought down as such._

_One of them began to twitch and writhe, his body glowing…_

"_This is Red Phoenix to Delta 1-9, Harbinger spotted 2 o'clock of my position, 100 meters out. Target deemed priority, I repeat, target deemed priority!" She said, and without actually seeing them, she heard and felt the distinctive 'thoomp' of anti-personnel grenades launching out of their tubes and streak down to Harbinger. The Reaper incarnate didn't even get to finish announcing himself, when the high explosive shells began detonating right on top of him…_

Ken Donnelly and Khalisah both glanced at each other in worry, before turning back to Kelly as she continued to make explosion noises with her mouth. Conrad probably would have joined their moment of WTF-ing were he not trying to hold up his hands to cover his face. Kelly's verbal booms had real shrapnel, in the form of little droplets of spit.

"W-Wait" he said, partially to get her to stop spitting on him, and also because he had a legitimate question. "We're going to launch grenades at Harbinger when he shows up? Miss, do we even have any grenades?" Conrad turned back to the others. "Do you guys have grenades?"

"Kelly, sweetie…" Khalisah inched forward, and placed a gentle hand on our hero's shoulder. "…for the past 15 minutes now, nothing you've said has in any shape, way, or form, resembled anything sounding like a plan… In fact, that was probably the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life… I'm now that much dumber for having heard it."

Kelly's visibly deflated, and she looked like she was about to cry. "I'm sorry; I'm just so hungry that I can't even think anymore."

Ken, smirked "heh… You should have a Snickers bar. You're not you when you're hungry." He said, having never been able to resist a poor joke, at an inappropriate moment. He would have smiled at his clever reference of a 200 year old commercial, were it not for the sudden look of brittle hope the yeoman gave him.

"You have a Snickers bar?" she asked, like… well… like a starving woman was being promised a Snickers bar.

"Er, uh…" the Scotsman stammered "no, it was… it was a joke…"

Kelly's eyes began to water "Why would you lie to me like that?" she quavered.

"Hold on, Hold on… do we have grenades that nobody's telling me about? Because we could really use some grenades-"

"_Moving on!_" The loudmouth said loudly "Kelly, I know you're not feeling to up to it right now, but we need you to focus for a minute, okay?" she asked, and Kelly nodded. "Now you said that there are Collectors roaming around this 'salvage yard' you keep talking about?"

Kelly nodded. "Yea, but there's only, like… 15 of them, at the most, and they're mostly busy taking that stuff apart. The rest of it is just stuff they haven't gotten to yet. Small ships, shuttles, hover cars… lots of big shipping containers."

"Aye, that sounds about right" Ken said with a thoughtful look "they need to get supplies and materials, somehow. Wouldn't surprise me if this place was just a big patchwork job by now. It would explain why everythin's so ugly."

Kelly replayed the time that she spent in the yard back in her head again, "They all pretty much stick to that area, and if we can manage to not bump into one of them, when they're coming out to get more stuff, then I think we should be okay."

"Well that's great, and all" Conrad said, and he gestured to the front door "but how do we get through the door though without them killing us."

Being exiled from the ventilation system had presented many, many problems, for our 4 heroes. One of the biggest was that they had to move out in the open now. The primary corridors were huge, highway sized, and offered little to no cover should the need arise. Their only saving grace were the smaller structural or maintenance items that were placed along the side of the road, at regular intervals. Things like electrical boxes, support beams, or even random shadows cast by whatever, were the only things that kept them from being spotted.

And it sure wasn't fun either. Some big platform like vehicle, hauling whatever, would hover by and all 4 would have to dog pile themselves into an area the size of a foot locker. The awkward silences that followed were something you wouldn't believe, as everybody has at some point, hit second base with everybody else by now.

However, all of this paled in comparison to their current challenge; getting in the front door.

Doesn't sound that bad, does it? It was unlocked; they could easily walk right in. Unfortunately, the Collectors _also_ used the front door and unlike Kelly's first encounter, they had orders to shoot-on-sight now.

"hhmmm… That _does_ present a problem…" Kelly said, and chewed her fingernail as she watched the Collectors transit the large gate like door. Some of them were just flying with their wings, while most were moving on what they used for platform vehicles, just oversized variations of their pods that they used to carry colonialists. There didn't seem to be a pattern, sometimes it be 30 seconds before anybody came through, sometimes it would be 10. Once, it was a whole 2 minutes before anybody came through.

Either way, trying to time it out and wait for an opening seemed like a bad idea.

Ken Donnelly huffed in impatience, "Well we canna just sit here forever. We got guns; ah say we just punch our way throu-"

"I'm dumb, and unimaginative," Khalisah said, adopting a Scottish accent that was just passible enough to be offensive "and I have no concept of the fact that we're facing a _literal army, _so I want to go in 'GUNS-A-BLAZIN' to see how many assholes I can bring down upon us." She said, and gave Ken a look. "Does that summarize your plan, right there?"

"No, I think you're forgetting the part where you trip, _and fall into a dahmned pod, where we leave your sorry ass!_"

"Oh, _hell no!_" She said, and for a moment, it looked like she was about to fight Ken right there and then, when Conrad put himself between the two.

"Guys, c'mon," Kelly groaned. It was bad enough that Kelly was already having regrets about not taking the deal, but now it seemed like her own squad was going to kill _themselves_ if the Collectors don't get to them first. Their entire moral was at an all-time low, and Kelly was willing to admit that hers was too. For the umpteenth time in a row now, Kelly wished she had something to eat.

_Stupid Collectors,_ she thought angrily, and watched them stream though the door. She just wished that they'd just… take a break, or something. Maybe go find something better to do, and give them a little breathing room. Or maybe something to preoccupy themselves for a few minutes… like… like a…

"What if we distracted them?" she asked, and turned to her friends. She found that she was interrupting Kenneth and Khalisah in the middle of a slap fight. Conrad was in the middle, trying and failing to maintain as much distance between the two as possible.

"Focus!" she said, and finally she had their attention. "If we can keep them occupied at this gate for a second, we should be able to sneak right by."

"Aye" Ken was the first to speak up, while rubbing a sore spot on his face from where the loudmouth had gotten a good hit in "It sounds like a plan, but I dunna think we have anything that would really grab their attention… Not unless you can cause another one of those big fires, again."

_If only._ Kelly thought. That would be great, but unfortunately there weren't any pipes nearby.

"W-What if I use myself as bait?" Conrad suggested. Everyone turned to him with equal parts shock, and Khalisah looked a little horrified. "I mean. I could take a few shots at them, and try to run as far as I can… I'm probably just going to get myself killed anyway… might as well do something helpful before that happens."

"Oh, Conrad…" Kelly frowned. What he was suggesting was _suicide_ with nowhere to fall back to. And by the way he said it, it sounded like he knew it too. The poor man was having some serious self-esteem issues. Kelly was about to say something, however though, the loudmouth beat her to it by smacking him upside of his head with a resounding 'whack!'

"No, you moron, we're not going to use you as bait!" she said, and looked at Kelly "We're not using anybody as bait, right?" she asked warningly, and Kelly shook her head in agreement. Satisfied, Khalisah turned back to the pretender and called him a 'goddamned idiot' for good measure. Nobody commented on the fact that her harsh words lacked that 'bite' that she usually had.

Kenneth shrugged, and looked at everyone for conformation "So, is this it? Are we not goin for it?" Kelly frowned and began to chew her fingernail again, realizing that they really might not be. They desperately needed stuff, but it wasn't worth making a suicide run at the Collectors for it. And God help her, but she wasn't going to let _anybody_ sacrifice themselves, for any reason, if she could help it.

She sighed. They'd have make do without "No, I guess we're no-"

"Wait!" Khalisah said, and everyone turned to her. Kelly noted her reluctance, and the way that she protectively cradled her Holo-recorder "I might have something."

Everyone watched as she brought up the interface of her camera. She fiddled with the little touch screen, and scrolled though all of the footage that she'd accumulated so far. Kelly didn't know what she was doing, but she assumed it had something to do with the editing features, and finally, she pointed her camera at a nearby spot and hit ON.

"Oh, that's cool!" Kelly said. She found herself looking at a 3D projection of the loudmouth standing there.

"It's a little grainy, cause I had to expand the shit out of the image, but I think it will do." She said sourly "If we place it within 100 feet of the door, then I can set it to project on a 2 minute timer."

"It's perfect!" Kelly said happily "That'll give us just the window we…" She stopped and thought about it for a moment. "Wait, we'd be leaving your camera behind…"

Khalisah gave her a look that said that she was distinctly aware of this fact

The loudmouth's issues were pretty clear to Kelly, really. Her interviews with Shepard were actually included into his psyche file. Kelly also noted that she'd never pressed any charges (not that it would have mattered, as Shepard is a council SPECTRE), nor did she try and sue for any medical bills. This had prompted Kelly on a small journey though the extranet, thinking maybe that she'd been intimidated not to pursue anything.

She remembered being saddened to find that the reason she didn't raise any problems, was because this sort of thing happened to her all the time. Her career was in the gutter. Kept only afloat by her shock journalism methods, which more than often ended with her getting pounded in the face. People loved this (much to Kelly's disgust) and Wusterland news made an entire show out of it. They were actively forcing her to interview the most volatile celebrities that they could think of, in hopes that Khalisah's abrasive personality will push them over the edge.

It was a vicious cycle.

Judging by the way she was acting, that camera, and the story that was building within it, was her ticket out of that life. Now that she thought about it, Kelly was actually pretty touched that she was willing to risk that ticket on helping them stay alive.

"Khalisah" Kelly said, her memory bringing up the map before her eyes "that salvage yard only has one door leading into it. And since we can't use the ventilation ducts anymore, that means that we only have one way out. I promise that we will pick it back up, on the way out."

The loudmouth only glared at her with a look of mistrust. She was clearly a woman who's heard her share of false promises. _Probably comes with the life in show business, _Kelly thought.

"I swear it" she said, and met her eyes "I don't care _what_ is going on, we will not leave your camera behind. Okay?"

She only stared for a few seconds before she finally spoke "You better not be jerking me around." She warned.

"I promise you, Khalisah, I'd never jerk anybody around like that" she declared.

X

Harbinger seethed, as the reaper was positive that this sack of human garbage was just jerking it around.

Having possessed a slave, Harbinger was now all the way down in Deck 72, taking care of the latest mess that the redheaded rat had made: the thousands of dead swarmers that were stuck in the air conditioning filters.

_Technically_ it was kind of the reapers own fault for having released them, knowing that this was going to happen. But what choice did the Harbinger have? This _thing,_ that Cerberus let loose on its base, was clearly not to be underestimated anymore. Commander Shepard was still the number one threat of the human race… but man, this little witch…

Harbinger watched as a drone hefted a heavy looking filter, which was almost as tall as the Collector itself, and turned it over. Hundreds of dead wasps poured out, but for every 2 that fell, there was at least one still stuck inside. They were going to have to be handpicked, and this filter was one of, like, 180 others; all of them clogged.

She was making a fool out of Harbinger, and quite frankly, the reaper has had enough.

One of the drones lifted a vent to shake out the swarmers, however, there was still a little bit of nanobot gel inside and it splashed on its face. Harbinger turned just in time to watch it flail around in pain, only to bump into the barrel they were putting the dead swarmers in, and watched as it teetered and finally fall over, spilling its contents all over their stack of clean filters they'd just got done cleaning. They will now have to start all over again.

Had Harbinger had a set of working lungs, it would have sighed.

X

It was the waiting that killing Kelly. It was unavoidable, but that didn't mean that she had to like it.

Khalisah needed time to set up her camera. That part was easy; the hard part was putting in a relatively close spot near the door. Kelly worried for the loudmouth, as she had to go about that particular endeavor by her lonesome. There was just no other way to do it, all four of them would just be asking for trouble.

She was at least able to reassure Kelly that she'd made an entire career out of sneaking around, and putting cameras in places they had no business being. The yeoman was still chewing away at her fingernails, but at least she was able to have some faith that she wouldn't hear the sudden 'crack' of a rifle, marking the death of Khalisah.

…and so she waited.

Now, while they waited for her to return, Kelly could only sit with the rest of the squad and watch the Collector traffic from their hiding spot. Just wait, watch, and wonder what might Collectors used to be like. What might happen to their own race one day, should they fail to stop the reapers.

Looking around, Kelly thought about what Ken said, about this place being a big patchwork job. The space station was in pretty bad shape. Like, really bad. There was not 3 feet of this station that wasn't somehow corroded, malformed, or unclean. The base _LOOKED _50,000 years old, and though she was no expert, it didn't look like it could make it another 50 millennia.

…It all kind of gave Kelly a little theory.

She was willing to bet that when the reapers finished killing off everyone in Citadel space, that whoever was left was going to come back and replace the Protheans. Like… like, maybe they might someday _become _the Collectors.

The whole idea was absurd, but in its own way, it kind of made sense. Though she still didn't know what purpose this station served, or why they had to process humans to do it, it was evidentially important enough for the reapers to maintain this facility, in secret, for an entire cycle.

However, unlike the Citadel, which has gone many cycles and was in pristine condition, the Collector base was falling apart in one. It made her think that this place was disposable. From what Kelly's seen from the reports, the reapers never did anything without reason. Everything was perfectly timed out, galactic extinction on a perfect schedule.

Maybe… when it was all said and done, humanity would get themselves a shiny new base to hide in, only to come out 50,000 years from now, and start collecting the next set of races that ruled the stars. What they're fighting here and now, might not just be their enemy… they might be fighting their _future_.

"_wow..._" Kelly quietly whispered to herself. She had to be careful not to let the breeze give away their position, _because this whole thing_ _is just blowing her mind_.

"Hey."

Kelly jumped, just barely managing to stifle what would have been shrill 'eek!'.

"Khalisah, you scared me!" she whispered harshly "I didn't even hear you, when did you get back?"

"Like, two minutes ago!" She whispered back "I already explained how this thing works to these two chucklefucks, weren't you even listening?" She said, and pointed to her wrist, which was aglow with what could have been mistaken for an omnitool. However, Kelly could see that it only had a few buttons on the interface, so more than likely; it was just a remote control for her holo-recorder. She then looked over at Kenneth, and Conrad, and they seemed to be checking their weapons, obviously getting ready to move.

"Uh…" Kelly stammered for a second "Yea… I totally was… but just in case, I think we should go over it again." She lied.

Obviously not buying it, Khalisah rolled her eyes and began to explain. "Okay, I've got the camera set up in a pretty safe location. This thing on my wrist is a remote, and as soon as we're ready, I'll push play and it will project an image. We gatta move fast, though, cause I don't think it'll take those assholes long to figure out it's a fake. You got that?"

"Got it."

"Good"

Kelly looked to the others "You guys all ready?" she asked. They nodded, looking as ready as anybody could look, when they were about to do something really dangerous, on an untested plan.

"Ah hope this plan doesn't go all tits up…"

"y-yes ma'am, I'm ready."

"Okay, when we get in there" Kelly almost said 'if' "I want us to stay away from the entrance, that's where most of the drones are probably going to be. I want us to split up; there are lots of shipping containers, boxes, and even a couple of small ships I remember seeing in there." She said, and then began addressing each of them individually.

"Kenneth, I need you to find some kind of transportation for us, a hover car, a shuttle, something, anything really."

"Are you sure that's a good idea, lass? Won't that just make us kinda obvious?"

"Probably, but as it stands, we're at their mercy out here with no cover." She said, and gestured to the massive corridor they were in. "A lot of the vehicles I seen were stripped down, but some more than others. If you think you can fix it, go for it. If nothing else, I'd rather be a moving target than a sitting duck."

"Aye, lass, I'll find something good."

"Conrad" she said, and the pretender perked up "I'm putting you on weapon's detail. Poke around the shipping containers, maybe some of the boxes, anything you can find that's better than what we've got. Can you do that for me?" Conrad shook his head "Yes ma'am!"

"And just call me Kelly, okay?"

"Yes ma- er, Kelly." He stammered, and Kelly only gave him a sweet smile, before turning to Khalisah.

"Khalisah, you're looking for the miscellaneous stuff, anything we're not thinking of." Kelly said, and the loudmouth harrumphed, and crossed her arms at her chest "well that sounds _really_ fucking important." She said sarcastically.

"I'm serious!" Kelly said "Khalisah, that thing with the hologram was a great idea! I didn't know that those holo-recorders did that, and there's so much stuff just lying around this base. Heck, I randomly found an omnitool with a shields and a combat drone, who knows what else there is out here."

"… My hologram thing _was_ a pretty nifty idea…"

"And you're saving our butts, because of it." Kelly reaffirmed "So can I trust you to do this for me?"

"Fine, but what are you going to be doing?" She asked.

"I'm going to try and see if I can find us some supplies. Medigel, heatsinks, that kind of stuff…" she said, and left out _food._ That was actually at the top of their list, before 'Medigel'. Kelly was so hungry, that she would seriously consider eating a turian ration, should she find one.

A few minutes, and a little bit of sneaking later, they were as close to the door as they dared. Completely oblivious to our heroes, the Collectors continued their stream of steady traffic. They were so close, that they could actually hear them chitter amongst themselves. Hidden mostly by the shadows, Kelly wordlessly looked to Khalisah and gave her the go-ahead.

The loudmouth nodded in return, raised her right hand and began a silent countdown from three.

Soundlessly, a perfectly proportioned, three dimensional Ken Donnelly winked into existence, not 15 feet from the Collector line.

…and nothing happened.

Well, that's not accurate, _almost_ nothing happened. The Collectors that were moving though all slowed to get a look at the man. For a second, Kelly wondered if this was like her first time coming through, and allowed herself to hope that maybe the Collectors would just let them walk in unmolested.

Unfortunately, that wasn't meant to be, as one of the drones finally deviated from its course. Hefting its arm full of spare parts, its body language made it almost look like it was more annoyed than anything else.

Our four protagonists could only watch in mute fascination, as the Prothean carefully set its heavy load down, pulled up its rifle, and put a single round through "Ken's" head. This caused the real Kenneth to shiver unconsciously at watching what should have been his own execution.

Khalisah turned, and looked back to the others _'That's it!? Do they know it's a fake?' _she wordlessly mouthed the others.

Conrad shrugged _'I don't think so, they tried to shoot it.' _He mouthed back, and the loudmouth turned to Ken with an accusatory look. _'You fucking suck as bait!'_

The maintenance man only responded with one finger, but the message was pretty clear.

Uninterested of the wordless bickering behind her, Kelly continued to watch the Collector that'd shot the hologram. It merely looked at its own gun, the fake Scotsman, and shrugged its shoulders in a 'welp, I tried' fashion, before it picked up its load and resumed its journey.

…It didn't look like it didn't fool them, it almost kinda looked like they just didn't _care_. Like they were busy, and couldn't be bothered to put that much effort to kill what they probably ranked just slightly above a cockroach.

Maybe, just maybe, the plan was solid and they were just using the wrong bait…

Kelly frowned, and she had to look of a woman who was about to ask a question that she severely didn't want to know the answer to.

She turned back to Khalisah and tapped her shoulder, who was busy flipping Ken off with _both_ hands in response to the his one. She turned back to Kelly with an irritated _'what do you want?'_

Undeterred, Kelly mouthed _'Make the hologram look like me.' _

'_What, why?'_

'_Just do it.'_

The woman grumbled, and began to fiddle with her remote. The Ken hologram winked out, and after a few seconds, it was replaced with one of the Yeoman…

I'd like to say that Kelly waited to see what would happen next, but in reality, _there was no waiting. _

Every Collector, all of them with any sort of visual range of the new hologram, instantly and literally dropped what they were doing and drew their weapons with the speed of a spaghetti western film.

Kelly barely had time to raise their eyebrows in shock as they all opened fire on her visage, all of their weapons on fully automatic. The hail of death, which they managed rain down, was so thick that it actually caused the hologram to flicker.

"Oh my god!" Conrad said. He didn't even try to keep it down, their firestorm was so loud he could barely hear himself, let alone them. Ken was outright speechless, and Khalisah slowly pulled her sight away, and turned to Kelly with a look of awe.

"…Holy shit, Kelly, they have a real big hard-on for you."

Kelly watched in utter despair, as her decoy look-a-like now had several particle beams streaming through her "Aww, man, I am gonna diiieee…" she sobbed, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.

Kenneth shook his head. This was most definitely the opening that they were waiting for, and began to herd the younger redhead by her shoulders "O-Okay, they look pretty distracted to me! We should really get… what the bloody hell?!"

One of the Protheans came running up with a large wooden club, with a bunch of rusty nails in it for good measure, and began to viciously swing at hologram Kelly's head.

"Why!?" Kelly cried "where would they even get the wood, or nails, to even make something like that?!"

"We're moving now!" Khalisah said, and they all quietly crept through the side of the gate that nobody was looking at. To be honest, they could have snuck in a marching band with how focused they were on what they thought was the Yeoman. Kelly risked one last glance, just in time to see one collector dump a bucket of green liquid on her decoy. Being that it was just a hologram, it went right through and splashed on the ground. To her horror, it became obvious that it was acid as it began to bubble, and eat through the panels of the floor.

"Is that even necessary!?" she wailed, and was pulled away by her friends.

X

Kelly Chambers stared straight ahead, and walked the walk of the damned. The normally perky young woman had made a career, hell, an entire _lifestyle_ of being the nicest person that she knew. She's made it this far in live without anybody ever wanting to kill her, and now _everybody_ wanted to, in the worst possible way!

"Aww, don't look so glum, lass, we're here to watch yer back. Things aren't as bad as they seem." Ken said from behind her.

Kelly wiped her eyes, and found that the kind words from the Scotsman _did_ lift her heart a little. "Thanks, you guys." She said, and turned around "If I'm stuck here, then I'm glad to at least have such wonderful friends like y…" Kelly paused, and noticed something wrong. They were all standing next to each other, like normal, but were maintaining at least 15 feet from Kelly herself.

"…Why are you guys standing so far away for?" She asked, and they instantly looked uncomfortable. Ken found a sudden newfound interest in the floor, while Conrad 'uuhhh'd' and rubbed the back of his neck. Khalisah's eyes darted left and right, like she was looking for something to dive behind.

"w-well you see" Conrad began slowly "we just thought that we saw you… sneeze…" He lied, and Khalisah nodded quickly in agreement "Yea! What he said! We just thought that you looked a little sick and we don't want to catch a bad case of… screwed..." She finished, lamely.

Kelly's lip began to quiver.

"Riiggghht" Ken dragged out "we're just gonna go ahead and get to findin that stuff you asked for." He said awkwardly.

"You know what, fine!" Kelly said, and turned around with an angry huff "just leave me here, _all alone_, for the Collectors to find, I-I don't even care!" she said, and turned back to face them again "But if I find any food, I am _not gonna sha…_"

Kelly blinked and realized that there wasn't anybody standing there. They'd all managed to vanish in the one second that she'd turned around.

"_You guys are jerks!_" she cried, but was only met with the sound of crickets.

Aww, poor Kelly. Anyway, speaking of tremendous jerks…

x Meanwhile x

Being assigned the post of 'Greeter', on the planet of Bakenstein was probably one of the safest, easiest, and least desired jobs in all of Donavan Hawk's private army. The planet's atmosphere was lush, hot, and very humid, which made standing in one spot in heavy armor absolute torture.

And worse than the heat were the people that he had to deal with.

All of them were self-important pompous assholes, who practically expected him to bow down before them, as if they were the single most important being in the entire galaxy. And god help him, and today was going to be the worst, because today was Donavin Hawk's big party.

"Mwah mwah mwah mwah…" An old woman, probably in her late 60's, continued to prattle on while sounding suspiciously like a teacher in a Charlie Brown cartoon. The assigned guard was sure she was making actual words and stuff, but to be honest he didn't really care. Years of combat training, and all of his experience with the Alliance Marines all boiled down to two simple words.

"Yes Ma'am" he said, when there was a brief pause in the random sounds she was emitting. She seemed satisfied, so he figured he'd responded in the correct context and let her though. All he needed to know to know was that her name was on the list, and that she was unarmed. Days like today, he sometimes wished that some heavily armed terrorist actually _would_ try to come through.

"Scuse me, bitches. Pardon me; playas gotta play his play, on a schedule after all…" The greeter looked up from his list and around the line of guests to see what the sudden commotion was.

What he saw promptly made his jaw drop.

"…Wut?"

Warlords, crime bosses, top profile assassins, and multibillion credit corporate tycoons were being roughly shoved aside like they were cannon fodder at a Wal-Mart Black Friday sale as Commander Shepard, along with a tiny Japanese woman, were blatantly cutting the line and making their way to the front. The Commander himself was dressed in an expensive tuxedo, and on a hover pad, was dragging along the single ugliest statue the guard had ever seen in his life.

The private security officer looked up at the man, who looked severely uncomfortable in his suit, and raised an eyebrow.

"uhh, hello sir, can I have your name please?" he asked, brought up his list, and eyed the young woman who followed quietly behind him.

"My name? Oh, right! My name is Solomon Gun, and this here is my lovely young assistant…" he said gestured toward Kasumi and paused when he realized that she'd never actually told him her cover name "…uh, Kasumi Goto?" The smaller woman, having her true identity been so casually exposed, facepalmed with an audible 'slap!'

"I see. And I presume that this giant statue of… Saren Artuis… is your gift to Mr. Hark?"

"Why, yes, yes it is."

"Right, and tell me, Mister Gunn, what is your middle name?" he asked, and Shepard began to sweat.

"Uhhhhh… I don't… know…"

The guard put his list away, and began to massage the bridge of his nose. God, he was not being paid nearly enough to deal with this shit. "Okay, let's just get this out in the open. You are not Solomon Gunn."

"I- Uh, well, you see-"

"No, you're not. It is _painfully obvious_ that you are Commander John Shepard."

The Commander looked to Kasumi, and she could only shrug in response. They both looked back to the guard, and he felt the need to explain. "You do realize that putting on a tuxedo doesn't actually make you look any different, right? What, did you think that you were gonna 'Clark Kent' your way in here?"

"Well, kinda…" Shepard said lamely. "I mean- Hey, wait a minute! How do you even know who I am, anyway?"

The guard looked gob smacked, like he couldn't believe what he was hearing "Dude, are you kidding me? Do you have any idea how famous you are? You're a goddamn war hero! You were the first, and so far, _only_ human to ever be inducted into the specters. Do I even need to mention that you are the _literal savior of the Citadel?_"

"Huh… I guess I never really thought about that…"

"I once ate a box of Wheaties with your face on it." The guard declared.

"Really?" Shepard asked, and scratched his chin thoughtfully "I don't ever remember seeing any money from that…"

"Not to mention all of the news you're making for punching that reporter lady again, and flying around on an evil Cerberus version of the ship you died on… and… did you blow up a planet recently?"

"Damn it!" the Commander swore, and turned to Kasumi. "You see, I knew that this was going to happen! You blow up, like, one planet, and suddenly everybody turns into a bunch of whiny hippies!"

"Dude, you destroyed a garden worl-" the guard stopped and shook his head "you know what, it doesn't matter. Just tell us what you want, and we'll bring it up."

"…Just like that?"

"Well it's either that, or I go toe-to-toe with the man who's literally lowered the population of Citadel Space by about 1.3%. All by gunshot.

"!.3%? I don't think I've killed _that_ many people…"

"They confirmed it during the last Census. I've got a family to think about. I'm the sole provider of a wife, and 3 kids. Bob over there…" The man pointed to a lone soldier that was patrolling the upper taris of the massive mansion "is like a month away from retirement. Been saving his entire life for a nice little spot on Eden Prime.

Hell, we've got, like, 3 asari vanguards that are members of the Big Sister foundation for orphaned colonists. _Most of them orphaned because of you!_"

"Wow… I'm sorry… I didn't know…" Shepard said, and looked down at the ground in shame.

"Yea, I bet you never think about stuff like that, when you're goin around '**Killin Badguys**'… you jerk."

XxX

It's form ablaze, Harbinger casually strode up to the gate of its own salvage yard. That insect, the Kelly Chambers, had made a very grievous error, and because of it, she would die. To her credit, her little distraction had worked and gotten her past these mindless drones. The reaper honestly didn't expect these morons to know the difference between the her and a mere hologram. They were just workers, after all.

However successful her clever ruse was, she'd given Harbinger the very card that it was hoping for: her exact location.

And even better, was that that short sighted filth had gone into the salvage area which, while very big, also only had one way in. And with a little work on the reaper's part, it now had _no way out_. Minutes after the timer on Kelly's hologram had run out, Harbinger's assembled strike force had swooped in and set up a defensive barricade. High powered shield generators were quickly set up, and now the entire threshold was aglow with hexagonal energy barriers, with well over a 2 dozen Collectors on standby.

And that wasn't even the strike force…

Behind them were a little over _thirty_ of Harbingers finest Collector Guardians, Scions, and even a goddamned Praetorian for good measure. As soon as they fully assemble, they would be the ones going in to hunt the redhead. Harbinger had made the mistake of underestimating Cerberus's warrior, and it was not a mistake it intended to make again. More than likely, she was a tactical expert, and would be treated as such.

…As her filthy kind would say; _the gloves are off_.

=Public Service Announcement=

"Hi, I'm Kelly Chambers, star of TAMV, and I'm here to talk about a very serious issue which may even put yourself in danger.

…Pissing off reapers.

Reapers are giant immortal starships of immense power, and are very dangerous when provoked. So the next time you find that your potted plant, pet, or even a loved one is possessed by a reaper, be respectful, decline any dubious offers it gives you, and get a parent.

_**The more you know! **_


End file.
